QUACS
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Quality of life after cardiac surgery
IRAS ID
260891
Contact name
Samer Nashef
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Papworth Hospital
Duration of Study in the UK
3 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
During the last twenty years heart surgery has become safer and the number of patients having heart surgery has increased with more frail patients being offered increasingly complex surgery. Heart operations often improve survival and quality of life (QoL), but that is not true for all patients. Regarding survival, we can measure the risk to life from having a heart operation and the risk to life from not quite precisely, but we have little idea about the impact of heart operations on QoL, which is the outcome that patients care about most. We are unable to provide patients with robust information on how an operation will affect their QoL. This study will provide this information.
We shall use existing questionnaires to measure QoL in patients having major heart surgery. QoL will be measured before the operation and monthly afterwards for 12 months in order to answer the following questions:
1. How does having heart surgery affect the QoL immediately after the operation?
2. How long does it take patients to return to the same quality of life they had before the surgery?
3. How long does it take patients to regain any loss of quality of life due to the operation? Does quality of life improve thereafter?
4. What proportion of patients will achieve a net benefit in QoL?
5. Are there features that can predict who will benefit in terms of QoL and who will not?We will use the data to develop an electronic calculator to enable quick and robust evaluation of the impact of heart surgery on the QoL of individuals. Patients will then be able to give truly informed consent and to decide if they wish have surgery based on a full knowledge of both surgical risk and the potential impact on QoL.
REC name
Wales REC 6
REC reference
19/WA/0123
Date of REC Opinion
14 May 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion