Paper Title
The Impact of Uterine Fibroids on Quality of Life; A Study on Uterine Fibroid Cases Attending Gynecology Clinics in National Ayurveda Teaching Hospital, Borella.- An Observational Study

Abstract
This study is aimed to find out the impact of uterine fibroid related symptoms on health related quality of life using a disease specific instrument, the UFS-QOL. Identify the specificity of uterine fibroid cases attending to Ayurveda treatment will be another objective. This prospective cross-sectional observational study was carried out at National Ayurveda Teaching Hospital, Borella. Sri Lanka. 100 cases have been recruitedon consecutive basis by convenience sampling between May 2018 and July 2018.Data has been collected included demographics, risk factors, symptoms, HRQL(health related quality f life). To assess the quality of life Uterine Fibroid Symptom and Health Related Quality of LifeQuestionnaire (UFS-QOL) was used. Questionnaire was translated to Sinhala language and validated. This study was approved by Ethics ReviewCommittee of theinstitute. Mean age of study sample was 32.8 yrs,77% were married. Commonly reported risk factors were null parity and high BMI 54%. Most common symptoms reported were subfertility (64%), heavy menstrual bleeding and pelvic pain.The mean (SD) symptom severity score in the UFS QoL questionnaire (range 0–100) 61.51,was moderately severe, could be another specific factor of following Ayurveda treatment as they can bear up the difficulties up to some extent till the treatment show the results. In the present study, the results clearly suggest that uterine fibroids is a precipitating factor of QoL, total HRQL was 60.41(±16.79).Study show that the profile of Sri Lankan women attend to Ayurveda treatments for uterine fibroids are of child bearing age, married and suffering from subfertility. Avoid surgeries and preserving uterus for future pregnancy by following medicine based treatment could be the reason for that. This study provides baseline assessment for the health status of the patients using Ayurveda and results could be applied in clinical practice and further research work. Key words - Uterine fibroids, Quality of life, Ayurveda