Abstract 13530: Life Quality, Work and Functional Recovery of Cardiac Arrest Survivors After Hospital Discharge

Abstract

Background: Along with the improvement in resuscitation science and post-cardiac arrest care, an increasing number of cardiac arrest (CA) victims survived to hospital discharge. Research Questions: Do cardiac arrest survivors return to their life and work after hospital discharge? Aims: To investigate whether the life quality, work ability, and neurological recovery of cardiac arrest survivors improves continuously within 1 year after hospital discharge. Methods: The retrospective single center study enrolled 169 non-traumatic adult CA patients who survived to hospital discharge between 2017 and 2020. The following were excluded: patients who expired within 1 year following hospital discharge, patients who unable to be contact after hospital discharge, and patients who refused to join the study. A total of 71 patients were included in this study. The use of medical service including outpatient and ER visit, and hospital admission were collected from medical record. The work status, life quality and neurological function were evaluated by questionnaires including the World Health Organisation Quality of Life Brief Form and EuroQol 5-Dimension, 5-Level Health Scale (EQ-5D-5L). Results: There were 67 patients (94.4%) discharged with cerebral performance category (CPC) of 1, and the 2 patients (2.8%) with CPC of 2. Most patients (64, 90.1%) returned home. Sixty-seven patients (94.4%) returned to outpatient visit at a median time of 6 days, 22 patients (31%) visited ER at a median time of 70 days, and 21 patients (29.6%) were hospitalised again at a median time of 44 days. The neurological function evaluated by CPC at 3 months and 1 year post-discharge did not show significant improvement. Patients demonstrated improved ability to work as well as improved scores for overall life quality, general health, physical, psychological, social relations, and environmental status. With regard to mobility, self-care, usual activities, pain/discomfort, and health state assessed by EQ-5D-5L, the patients with more than moderate impaired also decreased significantly. Conclusions: Life quality and work ability of CA survivors improved continuously within 1 year after hospital discharge.