quality of life evaluation in iranian postpartum women with and without striae gravidarum

Background: striae are a common change during pregnancy, leaving striae in various body parts after delivery, which most women find unpleasant. they create a big aesthetic concern for most women. although striae do not endanger the mother and the fetus, they may cause a desire to scratch the region leading to small wounds, induce stress over beauty, decrease self-confidence, and create psychological disorders. they may try various treatments and often refer to dermatology clinics and receive long-term treatments; these time-consuming and costly behaviors and may affect their quality of life. objectives: the aim of this study was to evaluate the quality of life in iranian postpartum women with and without striae gravidarum. materials and methods: this cross-sectional study was conducted on 145 women who had referred to health centers of mashhad to receive post-delivery health care six weeks after delivery during year 2013. multi-stage sampling was applied to select the participants. the tools used were demographic, sf-36 quality of life, skindex29, atwal and fitzpatrick classification questionnaires. data were analyzed using the spss v.11.5 software. results: the subjects’ mean age was 26.3 ± 5.7. mann-whitney test showed there was a significant difference between mean of skindex29 and its dimensions (p < 0.001), general life quality (p < 0.001) in women with and without striae. mann-whitney test showed no significant difference between mean general quality of life dimension, except physical function in women with and without striae (p > 0.05). conclusions: the results showed that striae lead to reduced quality of general life and reduced skin quality index in women postpartum.