The purpose of this thesis is to analyze various aspects of quality of life and to determine if there is a difference in quality of life offered by a conventional ileostomy versus a continent ileostomy. An instrument was developed to measure several factors thought to influence quality of life as well as several structural/demographic variables. This instrument was designed for persons with a conventional ileostomy and was modified for persons who had undergone conversion surgery from conventional to continent ileostomy. Analysis of variance was performed to determine differences in quality of life for persons with a conventional, conversion, or original continent ileostomy. In addition to an overall quality of life measure, measures for specific areas: self esteem, family relationships, marriage relationships and a composite measure, were tested. No difference was detected for the three types of ileostomy for these variables. Analysis of variance was also performed on variables measuring specific aspects of life such as social activities and travel. This identified several differences in the ileostomy types which the analysis of the more general variables failed to detect. Those who had conversion surgery from conventional to continent ileostomies answered each question twice, comparing life with no ileostomy to life with a conventional, then comparing life with a conventional ileostomy to life with a continent. Three analyses were performed on the resulting data: sign test, chi-square test, and Fisher's exact test. The use of these three tests showed differences in results concerning quality of life and differences in the statistical power of the tests. Both aspects are discussed. Significant improvement in quality of life for almost every aspect tested was seen for this group. Finally, principal component analysis was applied to the set of variables measuring specific aspects of quality of life and several new variables developed from the resulting factors. Analysis of variance was performed on these, as well as the original quality of life measures to determine which of the structural/demographic variables had an effect on quality of life.