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Objectives: To assess the frequency of radial artery occlusion (RAO) in patients undergoing percutaneous cardiac catheterization. Methodology: A descriptive cross sectional study was carried out at cardiology department Jinnah hospital, Lahore from April – October 2018. One hundred thirty one consecutive patients who had undergone percutaneous cardiac catheterization via the trans-radial approach were enrolled in the study. Post procedure patients were followed in the ward and after 24 hours, Allen’s test was used for checking the patency of the radial artery. Color Doppler USG was performed in the patients with absent radial artery and RAO was confirmed. Data was entered and analysed in SPSS version 21.0. Results: Out of 131 patients who had undergone for percutaneous cardiac catheterization 63.4% were male and 36.6% were female. Among these cases radial artery occlusion was detected in 52 (39.7%) patients. No statistically significant difference was found with effect modifiers like age, gender, duration of procedure and type of intervention statistically insignificant difference was observed (P>0.05). Conclusion: A considerable number of patients were observed with radial artery occlusion with trans-radial approach thought statistically insignificant difference was noted among all ages, gender or type of intervention suggesting a detailed evaluation of radial artery patency should be done before hospital discharge.

Introduction: Quality of life is a multifaceted concept which reflect a number of parameters including different symptoms. These factors are affected by many factors including age, gender, marital status, education levels and socioeconomic status. Quality of life in majority of patients with different medical conditions is significantly affected, however, little is known in patients with heart failure coming to tertiary care hospitals of Peshawar. This study was designed to assess quality of life among heart failure patients and to determine association between quality of life and selected demographic variables. Material & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in three tertiary care hospitals; Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar. The data was collected through Minnesota Living with Heart Failure questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of twenty-one Likert's scale questions. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for categorical variables. All the Likert's scale questions were computed and mean and standard deviation were calculated. Independent t-test was applied to see mean difference across two categories of independent variables as male and female and ANOVA was applied to see the mean difference of quality of life across different categories including socioeconomic status. Chi square test was applied to see association between quality of life across different socio-demographic variables. Results: The total number of participants included in this survey was 127, whereas 67 (52.8%) were males and 60 (47.2%) were females. Majority of the participants (52.8%) were of above 50 years of age followed by 40-50 years. A big proportion of the participants (66.1%) was married. Majority of the participants (38.6%) had an education level of matric or below followed by 20.5% and 22.5% intermediate and bachelors, respectively. Nearly half of the participants (44.1%) had an income level from 10,000-20,000 rupees per month. An association of gender was observed with exacerbation of symptoms (p = 0.04), difficulty in climbing upstairs (p <0.001), moving in the yard (p < 0.001), going outdoor (p = 0.036) and sleeping difficulty (p <0.001). Similarly, an association was of marital status was observed with sexual pattern (p =0.037) and making you short of breath (p = 0.002). Scores of quality of life across male and female gender was significantly different (male and female; 45.48 ± 17.18 and 53.82 ± 16.55 (mean±sd) respectively, (p = 0.006).  Conclusion: The study found that patients were defecient in knowledge regarding medical cardiac conditions and its symptoms. It is deemed important for the nurses to properly assess the level of knowledge of these patients and accordingly educate them so that they could better manage their condition at home.

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