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DOI: 10.1055/s-2008-1037966
Health related quality of life of adults with congenital heart defects
Objective: Surgical progresses resulted in a growing population of adults with congenital heart defects (CHD). Where treatment but complete cure is not always available the measurement of quality of life (QoL) gains an essential value for the long-term surveillance.
Methods: A questionnaire was sent to 1,091 adult patients enrolled in the National Register for CHD in Germany. The health related QoL was measured using the SF-36. After correction for age and sex the results are compared with data from the German National Health Survey (n=7,066).
Results: Compared with the healthy population we found major differences in the dimensions 'physical limitations' (77 vs. 86), 'physical role functioning' (75 vs. 83), 'body pain' (84 vs. 68) and 'emotional role functioning' (80 vs. 90). Moderate differences were detected in the dimensions 'social functioning' (84 vs. 87), 'vitality' (58 vs. 60) and 'general health perception' (61 vs. 67). No statistically significant difference could be found in the dimension 'psychological wellbeing' (73 vs. 73). In the comparison of the different diagnostic groups, we found a significant difference with respect to the physical dimensions, but not with respect to the psychological wellbeing.
Conclusion: In this big sample, the health related QoL of adults with congenital heart disease differs from the healthy population in all scales but the psychological subscale. The biggest difference can be found with respect to the physical domains and the emotional role functioning. Patients perform well on the scale for psychological wellbeing. Cardiac diagnosis, patient's sex and age seem to affect QoL.