EJMS

Abstract

Background: A realistic prediction concerning quality of life (QOL) is often not available, thereby precluding a well-informed patient decision. This study evaluated QOL before and 1 year after mechanical valve replacement in two different populations. Methods: QOL was studied in 179 patients (47 Egyptians and 132 Belgians) using Short Forum- 36 Questionnaire (SF-36). We investigated the influence of age, gender, valve pathology, type of surgery, surgical access and patient population on QOL. Results: All patients in the two populations improved well in all QOL domains 1 year after mechanical valve replacement. Belgians are doing better than Egyptians in physical component summary (PCS) and mental component summary (MCS) both preoperatively and postoperatively. However, the mean change of PCS and MCS is significantly more in Egyptians than Belgians. Neither patient’s gender or patient’s age or valve pathology or surgical access does limit the degree of improvement in QOL. MCS is significantly correlated with the type of surgery where patients with mitral valve replacement and patients with double valve replacement have higher mean change scores postoperatively. There is significant difference in the patient’s socio-demographic and clinical data between these two populations and this may make QOL is significantly affected by the type of patient population. Conclusion: Patients with mechanical valves are experiencing significant improvement in their QOL 1 year postoperatively. The lower the scores of QOL preoperatively, the higher is the mean change postoperatively. The significant correlation between patient population and QOL is attributed to significant difference in socio-demographic and other clinical variables for each population.