The Impact of Body Mass Index on Quality of Life inWomen with Osteoporosis

Background: Improving the quality of life in osteoporotic women is one of the crucial goals of health systems. Hence, recognizingthe factors affecting the quality of life in such patients is an important issue. The body mass index (BMI) seems to be capable ofaffecting quality of life. Besides, BMI is a quantitative index simple to measure.Objectives: The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of BMI on quality of life in a group of osteoporotic women.Methods: One hundred osteoporotic women aged 50 - 60 participated in this descriptive-analytical study. These women were referringto the internal clinic of Mousavi Hospital of Zanjan. The body mass index was calculated after measuring both height andweight. Based on the BMI, the patients were divided into three groups: BMI < 18.5 underweight, 18.5 BMI < 25 normal and BMI 25 overweight. The short form 36 (SF-36) questionnaire was employed for measuring the quality of life. Given the normal distributionof data, one-way-ANOVA and Independent t-test were utilized to compare the means of the three groups. In all tests, P < 0.05was accepted as a significant level.Results: Comparison groups using the one-way ANOVA test on SF-36 subscale and total QOL scores showed in all components ofQOL; underweight, overweight and normal groups were significantly different (P < 0.05). Considering the Independent t-test, osteoporoticwomen in overweight group reported a poor quality of life as measured by the SF-36. Yet, the quality of life score in thenormal group and the underweight group did not have a significant difference.Conclusions: The results of this study demonstrated that increased BMI negatively affects quality of life. Therefore, it can be avowedthat keeping the BMI low and controlling it are effective in raising the quality of life in osteoporotic women. Thus, so as to improvethe quality of life in those patients, therapists ought to take greater heed of their BMI and its changes.

The Impact of Body Mass Index on Quality of Life inWomen with Osteoporosis Keywords:

Osteoporosis , Quality of Life , Body Mass Index (BMI)