Article Text
Abstract
Background Due to improved care, the numbers of patients with tetralogy of Fallot (ToF) are increasing. However, long-term morbidity and need for reinterventions are concerns and also address issues of quality of life (QoL).
Methods Patients with ToF and valid EuroQol-5 dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D) were identified in the national Swedish register on congenital heart disease. EQ-5Dindex was calculated and dichotomised into best possible health-related QoL (EQ-5Dindex=1) or differed from 1.
Results 288 patients met the criteria and were analysed. Univariate logistic regression showed a positive association between New York Heart Association (NYHA) class I (OR 8.32, 95% CI 3.80 to 18.21), physical activity >3 h/week (OR 3.34, 95% CI 1.67 to 6.66) and a better right ventricular function (OR 2.56, 95% CI 1.09 to 6.02). A negative association between symptoms (OR 0.23, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.42), cardiovascular medication (OR 0.31, 95% CI 0.18 to 0.53), age (OR 0.97, 95% CI 0.96 to 0.99) and EQ-5Dindex was observed. In multivariate logistic regression, NYHA I (OR 7.28, 95% CI 3.29 to 16.12) and physical activity >3 h/week (OR 2.27, 95% CI 1.07 to 4.84) remained associated with best possible health-related QoL. Replacing NYHA with symptoms in the model yielded similar results.
Conclusion In this registry study, self-reported physical activity, staff-reported NYHA class and absence of symptoms were strongly associated with best possible health-related QoL measured by EQ-5D. Physical activity level is a potential target for intervention to improve QoL in this population but randomised trials are needed to test such a hypothesis.
- tetralogy of fallot
- quality of life
- congenital heart disease
- register
- physical activity
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
Statistics from Altmetric.com
Footnotes
Contributors All authors have contributed to data collection, draft, critically reviewed the draft and finally approved the manuscript. ASS, CS, DR and BJ have performed database work and performed the statistical analysis.
Funding This study was funded by Västerbotten Läns Landsting, Norrländska Hjärtfonden, Riksförbundet HjärtLung and Hjärt-Lungfonden.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Ethics approval The investigation was approved by the Regional Ethical Review Board in Umeå, Sweden (Dnr 08-218 M, Dnr 2012 445-32 M and Dnr 2015-212-32 M).
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement The study is based on the national register SWEDCON where all data are stored.