Predictors of long-term HRQOL following cardiac surgery: a 5-year follow-up study

Background The study aimed to evaluate the long-term change of health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and to identify predictors of HRQOL 5 years after cardiac surgery. Methods Consecutive adult patients, undergoing elective cardiac surgery were enrolled in the study. HRQOL was measured using the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) questionnaire before and 5-years after cardiac surgery. A multivariate latent change modeling approach was used for data analysis. Results 210 participants (30.5% female) were reached at 5-year follow-up and included in final data analysis. The study revealed, after controlling for gender effects, a significant long-term positive change, in physical functioning (PF, M slope = 19.79, p < 0.001), social functioning (SF, M slope = 17.27, p < 0.001), vitality (VT, M slope = 6.309, p < 0.001) and mental health (MH, M slope = 8.40, p < .001) in the total sample. Lower education was associated with an increase in PF (M slope = 24.09, p < 0.001) and VT (M slope = 8.39, p < 0.001), more complicated surgery (other than the coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) predicted increase in general health (GH, M slope = 6.76, p = 0.005). Arrhythmia was a significant predictor for lower pre- and post-operative VT and SF. Conclusions Overall HRQOL in our sample improved from baseline to five years postoperatively. Further studies including larger patient groups are needed to confirm these findings.