Patients’ Health Related Quality of Life
HRQoL was lower than the Australian population
norms for each SF-36 scale apart from the Role Limit
Emotional scale in the standard care group. This scale was
also significantly higher in the standard care group
compared to the pathway group. We note that there may be
a link between the lower ‘role limit emotional, scores for
the pathway group and their lower satisfaction scores at
three months. However, further research would be required
to adequately explore the possible relationships. The
HRQoL values for both groups were similar to those
reported by March et al (1999) in pre-operative hip and
knee arthroplasty patients. However, there is no evidence
at present to suggest if the HRQoL of patients with a
proximal femoral fracture will continue to improve over a
period of 12 months, as did the HRQoL of patients in the
March study. Overall, we conclude that whilst both groups
of patients had relatively poor HRQoL there was no
difference between the groups.