**3.3 Perception of health-related quality of life in terms of gender**

In both groups HRQOL was lower for women both in the initial measurement and in the final measurement after one year. At the start of the study, the female patients of the RPP showed significant differences in most domains, and CT female patients showed these only in a few domains. One year later, the HRQOL difference between men and women in the RPP group remained unchanged for PCS1 (ES=0.40) and MCS1 (ES=0.34), and for the following domains: physical functioning (ES=0.53), bodily pain (ES=0.37), mental health (ES=0.35) and vitality (ES=0.69). For the CT group, the only significant differences were in bodily pain (ES=0.61), role-emotional (ES=0.51) and change in health (ES=0.48). See Table 3.

After one year, women within each group showed no changes in HRQOL measurements. Only the men following CT showed a significant decrease in general health (p=0.001 ES=0.33), social functioning (p=0.014 ES=0.15), vitality (p=0.007 ES=0.13), and change in health (p=0.012 ES=0.09).
