Study on health-related quality of life in patients with advanced heart failure before and after transplantation

Our objective was to evaluate health-related quality of life in patients with advanced heart failure on the waiting list for a heart transplant. Materials and methods. The study was performed using the EUROQOL-5D questionnaire (EQ-5D) on 38 patients (age: 53 +/- 2 years,82% men) who were analyzed consecutively during the pretransplant period, as well as at 3, 6, and 12 months after transplantation. We excluded pediatric transplants, retransplantations, heart and lung transplantation, and patients scoring below 17 points on the Folstein's Cognitive Mini-Examination. The studied variables included the five dimensions of the EQ-5D test: mobility, self-care, daily activities, pain-discomfort, anxiety and depression; a visual analog scale from 0 to 100; and perception of health status. Statistics included analysis of variance and chi-square tests. Significance was set at P < .05. Results. There were significant differences in all tested parameters. The worst values were observed prior to transplantation, with a significant improvement at 3 months. Conclusions. Patients with heart failure showed a significant impairment in health-related quality of life before transplantation. The improvement in health-related quality of life was significant and rapidly evident in the posttransplantation period. The most affected dimensions were activities of daily living and pain-discomfort. All dimensions became stable at 3 months, except for anxiety and depression. At 6 to 12 months, a plateau was reached in the feelings of well-being.