Predictors of long-term functional outcome and health-related quality of life after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest.

BACKGROUND

Even if a large majority of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA) survivors appear to have a good neurological recovery with no important sequellae, whether health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is altered is less explored.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

HRQOL was evaluated by telephone interview using SF-36 questionnaire. Each OHCA case was age and gender-matched with 4 controls from the French general population. Association between current condition of the survivors with the 8 dimensions of the SF-36 questionnaire was investigated using MANCOVA. Cluster analysis was performed to identify patterns of HRQOL among CPC1 survivors.

RESULTS

255 patients discharged alive from our referral centre between 2000 and 2013 (median age of 55y [45,64], 73.7% males) were interviewed. Global physical and mental components did not differ between CPC 1 survivors and controls (47.0 vs. 47.1, p=0.88 and 46.4 vs. 46.9, p=0.45) but substantially differed between CPC2, CPC3 and the corresponding controls. Younger age, male gender, good neurological recovery and daily-life autonomy at telephone interview were significantly associated with better scores in each SF-36 dimensions. Cluster analysis individualized 4 distinct subgroups of CPC1 patients characterised by progressively increased score of SF-36. Return to work and daily-life autonomy were differently distributed across these 4 groups while pre-hospital Utstein variables were not.

CONCLUSION

HRQOL of CPC1 OHCA survivors appeared similar to that of the general population, but patients with CPC2 or 3 had altered HRQOL. Younger age, male gender, good neurological recovery and daily-life autonomy were independently associated with a better HRQOL.