Quality of Life of Adult Patients Who Have Undergone Cardiac Surgery at No. (1) Defence Services General Hospital (1000 Bedded)

Abstract

A hospital-based, cross-sectional descriptive study design was conducted to study the quality of life of adult patients who have undergone cardiac surgery at cardiac Out-Patient Department, No. (1) Defence Services General Hospital (1000 Bedded), Mingaladon using combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in 2012. For quantitative data, a total of 55 respondents were interviewed using WHOQOL-BREF (World Health Organization, Quality of life) questionnaire. Six out of them selected through purposive sampling method were semi-structure interviewed to support the quantitative findings. The Kruskal-Wallis H and Mann-Whitney U test were used for statistical analysis of relationship between study variables. Postoperative median scores of Quality of Life (QOL) scale revealed an improvement in all dimensions except psychological with average of 50% of the respondents. Consistently, most respondents expressed their quite often negative feelings such as anxiety and worry after surgery. However, responses on QOL to their lives were mostly satis-fied. Psychological QOL scores were affected by their education (p=0.022). There were strong relationship between marital status, occu-pation, family income, family member and environmental domain scores at p<0.05. However, there was no significant relationship between socio-demographic and QOL regarding physical and social domain. Findings of this study highlighted that psychological support is an essential part of care programs following surgery and consideration should be put on the patients with low socio-demographic status. Provision of complete health information and comprehensive services for cardiac patients were recommended so as to increase QOL among them.