CONGENITAL HEART DISEASE Quality of life in adults with congenital heart disease

Objective: To examine the quality of life of adults with congenital heart disease. Design and setting: Observational, cross sectional study conducted at one general hospital in Birmingham, UK. Patients: All 471 patients registered at the adult congenital heart disease clinic were sent the 36 item short form health survey (SF-36) to assess their quality of life. Questionnaires were completed by 276 (58.6%) patients (41.7 % men; median (interquartile range) age 31.0 (26.3–36.0) years, range 16–85 years). Results: Surprisingly, patients deemed surgically cured (for example, atrial septal defect repair) had significantly poorer quality of life in all domains (all p < 0.05), except for pain, than the general popu-lation, as determined from population normative data. Patients who had received palliative treatment reported quality of life scores similar to those who had never required cardiac surgery and to the gen-eral population, although both patient groups had significantly poorer physical functioning and overall general health perception than the general population (all p < 0.01). Patients with inoperable condi-tions had significantly poorer physical functioning (all p < 0.01) and overall general health perception (all p < 0.05) than all other patients, and significantly worse quality of life in all domains than the simi