Evaluation of Daily Life Activities and Life Qualities of Ventricular Assist Device Installed Patients

Abstract

Conscious and professional nursing practices both during hospitalization period and after discharge have a great importance for preventing the possible complications with Ventricular Assist Device (VAD) and for maximizing the life quality. This research was conducted for the purpose of evaluating the daily life activity levels and the life qualities of the ventricular assist device installed patients. The research is a cross-sectional type descriptive research and it was conducted with 31 ventricular assist device patients who accepted to participate the research. It was used Patient Identification Form, SF 36 Life Quality Scale, KATZ Daily Life Activities Scale and EQ-5D General Life Quality Scale for data collection. Research data was collected from the VAD installed patients who come for their medical examinations to cardiovascular polyclinics and who have not been discharged yet after the transaction through face to face interviews by creating a noiseless and peaceful environment between the dates of May 2015 and November 2015. The data obtained from the study was evaluated through SPSS 20 package program. In the data evaluation, it was used Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis-H Tests, Chi-square analysis, Fisher' s Exact Test and Pearson Chi-square analysis. In evaluating the result, the significance level was evaluated as p<0.05. It was specified that 80.6% (n=25) of the patients who participated the study experienced rehospitalization and the reasons of rehospitalization of 35.5% (n=11) is infection, of 25.8% (n=8) is thrombus and of 22.5% (n=7) is device problems. It was seen that 70.9% of the patients felt themselves good after the device installation. While the life qualities of the patients were founded as median according to the SF 36 Life Quality Scale and EQ-5D General Life Quality Scale, it was identified that 71.0% (n=22) of them perform their daily life activities independently according to the KATZ Daily Life Activities Scale. It was identified that the patients became more independent, felt their health better and their life quality is increased than before the VAD.