OBJECTIVE: to correlate the quality of life assessment instrument, specific to osteoporosis, OPAQ (Osteoporosis Assessment Questionnaire), with the generic instrument SF-36 (Item Short Form Health Survey). PATIENTS AND METHODS: the cross sectional observational study included 40 female patients older than 60 years with osteoporosis. A single assessment was always conducted by the same evaluator. For the statistics analisys the Pearson’s coefficient and the factor analysis to OPAQ were used. RESULTS: there was a correlation between the domains and final components of SF-36 with the domains of OPAQ. The higher coefficients were between the OPAQ Symptoms and some domains of SF-36: pain (r=-0,6), social aspects (r=-0,6) and mental health (r=-0,5). Almost every aspect of SF-36 was correlated with the OPAQ Symptoms. By factor analysis of OPAQ it was observed that the 18 components of OPAQ represented 63% of factor load, and they explained the total account of osteoporosis’s impact in the quality of life and were grouped in five factors: factor 1 (mobility, self-care, independence and household tasks), factor 2 (flexibility, transfers and sleep), factor 3 (backache, pain related to osteoporosis, fatigue and mood), factor 4 (fear of fall, social activity, family support and tension) and factor 5 (walking and bending, body image and work). CONCLUSION: the expected correlation was achieved between SF-36 and OPAQ, wich is a specific assessment instrument capable of assessing particular and general aspects of the quality of life in patients with osteoporosis.
Quality of life; osteoporosis; SF-36; OPAQ
