Quality of life and its association with psychiatric disorders in outpatients with trauma history in a tertiary hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal: a cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND: Quality of life is an important indicator of health and has multiple dimensions. It is adversely affected in patients with trauma history, and psychiatric disorders play an important role therein. Studies in trauma-affected populations focus mainly on the development of psychiatric disorders. Our study explored various aspects of quality of life in trauma patients in a clinical setting, mainly focusing on the association of psychiatric disorders on various domains of quality of life. METHODS: One hundred patients seeking help at the psychiatry outpatient of a tertiary hospital in Kathmandu, Nepal, and with history of trauma were interviewed using the World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview version 2.1 for trauma categorization. Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were assessed using the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist-Civilian Version; while the level of anxiety and depression symptoms was assessed using the 25-item Hopkins Symptom Checklist-25. Quality of life was assessed using the World Health Organization Quality Of Life-Brief Version measure. Information on sociodemographic and trauma-related variables was collected using a semi-structured interview schedule. The associations between psychiatric disorders and quality of life domains were explored using bivariate analyses followed by multiple regressions. RESULTS: The mean scores (standard deviations) for overall quality of life and health status perception were 2.79 (.87) and 2.35 (1.11), respectively. The mean scores for the physical, psychological, social and environmental domains were 12.31 (2.96), 11.46 (2.84), 12.79 (2.89), and 13.36 (1.79), respectively. Natural disaster was the only trauma variable significantly associated with overall quality of life, but not with other domains. Anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder were all significantly associated with various quality of life domains, where anxiety had the greatest number of associations. CONCLUSION: Quality of life, overall and across domains, was affected in various ways based on the presence of psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder in patients with trauma. Our findings therefore emphasize the need to address these disorders in a systematic way to improve the patients’ quality of life. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12888-021-03104-6.