Abstract:
The purposes of this study were to explain quality of life and to investigate the relationships between pain, severity, self care ability, social support, depression, age, body mass index, and quality of life among knee osteoarthritic adult patients. The study subjects consisted of 150 out-patients with knee osteoarthritis at the Bhumibol Adulyadej Hospital Royal Thai Airforce, Lerdsin Hospital and Siriraj Hospital selected by a multistage random sampling. Six questionnaires were used to collecting data Pain, Severity of disease, Self care ability, Social support, Depression and Quality of life questionnaire. All questionnaires were tested for content validities by five panel of experts, and reliabilities that alpha Cronbach s coefficient were .76, .75, .92, .91, .92, and .92, respectively. Descriptive statistics (e.g., percent, mean, and standard deviation) and Pearsons Product Moment Correlation were used to analyze data. The major findings were as follows: 1. The quality of life of knee osteoarthritis adult patients were at the high level (X = 2.74 , SD = 0.5) 2. There were positive statistically significant relationships between self care ability, social support and quality of life of knee osteoarthritic adult patients at the low and low level (r .30, .36 , respectively, p <.05) 3. There was negative statistically significant relationship between pain, severity of disease, depression, body mass index and quality of life of knee osteoarthritic adult patients at the low, low, high and low level (r = -.33, r =-.34, r =-.65,r = -.18 , respectively, p <.05) 4. There was no significant relationship between age and quality of life of osteoarthritis adult patients (r = -.06 , p > .05)