Effects of Pain and Disability on Quality of Life in Patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Objective: To evaluate the association between severity of carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS), pain, disability and to assess their effects on quality of life. Methods: CTS patients whose diagnosis were confirmed with nerve conduction studies were classified as "mild", "moderate", and "severe". Pain evaluation was performed by "Pain Quality Assessment Scale (PQAS)" in all patients. Short form-36 (SF-36) was used to assess quality of life and "Brief Disability Scale" was used in the evaluation of disability. Results: 93.1% of the patients were women, and 6.9% were men. Mean age was 44.20 +/- 8.76 years (range=29-62). Mean duration of symptoms was 6.67 +/- 3.00 months (range=3-12 months). Most common symptom was paresthesia. Electrophysiological evaluations revealed moderate CTS in 43.8%, mild CTS in 44.8%, severe CTS in 6.9% of the patients. There was no significant association between CTS severity and time course subgroup of PQAS (p=0.222). But there was a statistically significant difference in the general pain subgroup and total scores of PQAS between moderate and severe CTS patients (p<0.05). There was a statistically significant difference in the mean scores of Brief Disability Questionnaire between patients with mild and severe CTS (4,46 +/- 3,61 and 11,50 +/- 4,94, p<0.05, respectively). A statistically significant negative correlation was found between the level of disability and physical function, pain, vitality, social function and mental health domains of SF-36. Conclusion: Quality of life is variably affected in patients with CTS due to the severity of CTS. On this aspect, it is important to diagnose and treat CTS on time to improve the quality of life of patients with CTS in early period, which is the best known and common compression neuropathy of upper extremity in community.