In the professional literature of many medical disciplines in recent years with increasing frequency the quality of life is discussed as the objective of therapeutic intervention. The quality of life of men with a posttraumatic transverse spinal lesion was not investigated in this country so far. Investigation how a man with a posttraumatic transverse spinal lesion perceives his position in the world, under his living conditions and in relation to his objectives, expectations, lifestyle and interests provides information on the quality of life of thus affected men. The authors examined 32 men - paraplegics, using a subjective self-assessing questionnaire SQU- ALA - QOL. The control group comprised 167 men. The authors found that while in the replies of respondents on the importance of different spheres of life there are no statistically significant differences between the mean score of paraplegics and controls, in the evaluation of satisfaction the score of paraplegics was significantly lower as compared with the control group in the categories of health - physical self-sufficiency - sex - politics - work. From the results ensues that for improvement of the life of men with posttraumatic spinal lesions collaboration of medical and non-medical components is essential.

        Key words: quality of life - SQUALA questionnaire - paraplegic quality of life.