Quality of life of children and adults following cardiac surgery for congenital heart disease: A Mexican cohort

Abstract

Objective: The real burden of (congenital heart defects [CHD]) and the improvement after surgical correction or palliation is both reflected in the quality of life (QoL). There are few studies in Latin-America that evaluate QoL in the CHD population. The purpose of this study was to measure the QoL after corrective or palliative surgery for CHD. Materials and methods: An observational, cross-sectional, and comparative study was carried out at the Miguel Hidalgo Centennial Hospital. Patients from 8 to 18 years old who underwent surgery for CHD were included during a period of 8 months. A total of 40 patients were included, together with a group of 80 healthy controls. From all participants, a KIDSCREEN-52 questionnaire was taken. A comparative analysis of the results was performed. Results: Overall, patients with cardiac surgery had better QoL indexes than healthy controls (p < 0.0001). The difference was greatest in moods and emotions, autonomy, and parent relations. Conclusions: Self-perception of QoL in post-operative patients for congenital heart disease is similar and in certain dimensions higher than the healthy population, possibly due to socioeconomic differences, parental care, and styles of coping with their disease. Higher complexity studies that include psychosocial variables and parental perception are required, and a better understanding of the QoL determinants will improve the attention provided to the patient and their families.

Pattern and determinants of health-related quality of life of adolescents with congenital heart disease in Cameroon: A single-center cross-sectional study

“…Although patients who underwent cardiac surgery have been reported to have poor QoL compared to healthy controls, 32 – 34 the comparison between CHD patients with and without surgical cardiac intervention seems to be inconclusive. Teixeira et al 22 found that adolescents and young adults who had not undergone surgery had a better QoL both overall and in the physical and social dimensions compared to those who had surgical procedures while Aguilar-Alaniz et al 16 found no significant differences in adolescents. In a longitudinal study, Boukovala et al 35 found that adolescents and adults with CHD reported better physical HRQoL following surgery and catheter intervention compared to the other treatment options.…”

“… 12 – 14 For instance, using the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL), a recent study in South India shown a significantly poor median HRQoL total score in healthy compared to CHD patients in children (91.3 vs 80.4), preadolescents (91.3 vs 67.1), and adolescents (89.1 vs 69.6). 13 HRQoL of patients with CHD varies widely across studies and may be dependent on economical, sociodemographic, and medical conditions of patients 15 , 16 and can be used as a good indicator of patient wellbeing and care. Understanding their HRQoL will also help in improving symptom relief and rehabilitation.…”

Quality of life in children with congenital heart disease (CHD): Systematic review

“…Several topics were discussed based on the review of 11 articles, including 5 articles discussing the relationship between quality of life in children with Congenital Heart Disease and healthy or normal children [8,10,12,13,15], 2 articles discussing quality of life in children with CHD according to patient age group [6,11], 3 articles discussing the relationship between quality of life for children with CHD and the type of CHD severity [5,9,14], and 1 article about the relationship between perceived quality of life between children with CHD and caregivers [7].…”

“…The review results from one article showed significant results that children with uncorrected CHD had a lower quality of life compared to their healthy peers [8]. The results of the review of two other articles showed that children with CHD who had received treatment had a better quality of life than their healthy peers [12,13]. Meanwhile, the results of the study of the other 2 articles showed that the results of self-reported quality of life scores in children with CHD were comparable or as good as their healthy peers [10,15].…”

“…This HRQoL assessment will lead to planning new health policies, social and psychological support, selecting individually appropriate interventions, reducing hospitalization and medical costs, and bringing patients and their relatives to increase their productivity. So it can be said that HRQoL evaluation is very important for the follow-up of chronic patients [8,10,12,13,15].…”