Quality of life in stoma patients

Saving the lives of a greater and greater number of elderly and often unhealthy and disabled patients has become a great achievement of modern medicine. On the other hand it has created the challenge of making those lives fairly good or even happy. Prolongation of lives is no more the goal in itself. A special concern for quality of life is today’s challenge. In this study we have analysed quality of life in stoma patients paying special attention to demographic aspects. 60 stoma patients were asked to fill in an original questionnaire with various entries such as sex, age, educational status, occupation, permanent residence, stoma background, self-confidence of stoma care, professional health care accessibility, or self-confidence of one’s health status. Good or very good ranks were obtained from 86% of patients. Statistically higher quality of life was reported by those patients who were confident of their general good condition after an operation and those having good access to professional health care officers or institutions.