Abstract
Background: Quality of life (QoL) assessment is essential for optimizing patient care, treatment adjustments, and medical decision-making, particularly in post-Myocardial Infarction (MI) patients, but limited data exists on QOL post MI from Pakistan. This study aimed to assess Quality of Life (QoL and its determinants in the Pakistani population.
Methods: A single-center cross-sectional study was conducted at a tertiary care hospital in Karachi, Pakistan. Patients ≥ 18 years with a primary diagnosis of acute MI (ICD 9 codes: 410.0-410.9 and ICD-10 codes: 121.0-121.9) discharged from the Cardiology Service from January 2019 to December 2020 who could be contacted and consented to participate were included. Data was collected from electronic records, and patients were interviewed via phone calls using a validated Urdu version of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire. Statistical analysis was performed using non-parametric tests via RStudio (Version 1.4.1717).
Results: The final study cohort was 440 patients with a median age of 63 (IQR: 56,72) years, with a male predominance (68.2%). Physical health was the most affected domain. Females, lower income individuals, and those with lower level of education had lower QoL scores in all domains. Diabetes and presence of multiple co-morbidities were associated with lower QoL.
Marital and socioeconomic status, along with psychosocial factors were significantly associated with QoL scores. Notably, 62.0% of post-MI patients rated their overall QoL as good (scores of 4-5 on a Likert scale of 1-5). Cronbach's alpha values indicated good internal consistency, with an overall Cronbach's alpha of 0.902.
Conclusion:
Although a significant proportion of patients post MI in our cohort reported good QoL, several social factors were associated with lower QoL. These factors must be investigated further in discharge planning and post-discharge of patients with MI.