Background: It has been proposed that in-brace correction is the best guideline for prediction of the results of brace treatment for patients with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS). However, bracing may be a stressful experience for patients and bracing non-compliance could be psychologically related. The purpose of this study was to assess the correlation between brace compliance, in-brace correction and QoL of patients with AIS.
Methods: Fifty-five patients with a diagnosis of AIS were recruited. All were female and aged 10 years or above when a brace was prescribed, none had undergone prior treatment, and all had a Risser sign of 0-2 and a Cobb angle of 25-40°. The patients were examined in three consecutive visits with 4 to 6 months between each visit. The Chinese translated Trunk Appearance Perception Scale (TAPS), the Chinese translated Brace Questionnaires (BrQ) and the Chinese translated SRS-22 Questionnaires were used in the study. The in-brace Cobb angle, vertebral rotation and trunk listing were also measured. Patients' compliance, in-brace correction and patients' QoL were assessed. To identify the relationship among these three areas, logistic regression model and generalized linear model were used.
Result: For the compliance measure, a significant difference (p = 0.008) was detected on TAPS mean score difference between Visit 1 and Visit 2 in the least compliant group (0-8 hours) and the most compliant group (17-23 hours). In addition, a significant difference (p = 0.000) was detected on BrQ mean score difference between Visit 2 and Visit 3 in the least compliant group (0-8 hours) and the most compliant group (17-23 hours). For the orthosis effectiveness measure, no significant difference was detected between the three groups of bracing hours (0-8 hours, 9-16 hours, 17-23 hours) on in-brace correction (below 40% and 40% or above). For the QoL measure, no significant difference was detected between the two different in-brace correction groups (below 40% and 40% or above) on QoL as reflected by the TAPS, BrQ and SRS-22r mean scores.
Conclusion: The results showed a positive relationship between patients' brace wear compliance and patients' QoL. Poor compliance would cause a lower QoL.