Objective: To investigate stoma specific and generic HRQoL in patients with and without a parastomal bulge.

Background: Most patients have to live with their stoma complicated by a parastomal bulge. How this affects quality of life remains unclear.

Methods: Patients in the Danish Stoma Database completed the Short-form 36 health survey and the stoma-QOL questionnaire. Linear regression analysis, adjusted for potential confounding factors, provided mean and mean score differences and 95% confidence intervals for each HRQoL scale and item. Cohens d provided estimates of effect size.

Results: A total of 1265 patients (65%) completed the questionnaire 4.4 (interquartile range 3.1 6.0) years after stoma surgery. Of these. 693 (55%) patients with a parastomal bulge had significantly impaired (P < 0.01) HRQoL across all stoma specific and generic health domains compared to patients without a parastomal bulge. In patients with a benign diagnosis or an ileostomy, a parastomal bulge impacted significantly on Social Functioning and Mental Health resulting in a worse Mental Component Summary. A large bulge >10cm impaired HRQoL (P < 0.01) across all stoma specific and generic domains. The impact on HRQoL was independent of time with the bulge.

Conclusions: A novel finding in this large, unselected sample from high-quality regional registries was that parastomal bulging was associated with substantial and sustained impairment of HRQoL.