Assessment of Health-Related Quality of Life in Post-Operative Cardiac Surgery Patients in a Tertiary Care Hospital

Background: Cardiac surgeries are medical emergencies to prevent life threatening incidents or mortality. However, due to postoperative complications, there is discussion over subjecting high-risk individuals to cardiac surgeries. Drop of morbidity and Higher survival rates of the cardiac surgery can be good predictors of the outcome of surgery. Proper life style modification and adherence to medications avoids secondary cardiac risk factors. Objectives: Objective was to analyze the health-related quality of life in post-operative cardiac surgery patients. Materials and Methods: This was a hospital based prospective cross-sectional study carried out over 6 months. SF-36 questionnaire and was used to evaluate the HRQoL. Mann Whitney U test, mean and standard deviation statistical tools were used to analyze the data. Results: A total of 152 patients were enrolled in the study of which majority of patients undergone CABG. HTN was found to be most common comorbidity followed by diabetes. The study found that the HRQoL in post-operative cardiac surgery patient was significantly low, which was observed in role limitation due to emotional problems (28.41). Females had better quality of life scores (p value <0.00001). Conclusion: The overall study showed that there was less impact in QoL in post-operative cardiac surgery patient. So, in order to improve QoL, health care experts must plan interventions accordingly.