Premium
Quality‐of‐Life of Pacemaker Patients : A Reappraisal of Current Instruments
Author(s) -
STOFMEEL MONIQUE A.M.,
POST MARCEL W.M.,
KELDER JOHANNES C.,
GROBBEE DIEDERICK E.,
HEMEL NORBERT M.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
pacing and clinical electrophysiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.686
H-Index - 101
eISSN - 1540-8159
pISSN - 0147-8389
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-8159.2000.tb00879.x
Subject(s) - medicine , quality of life (healthcare) , reliability (semiconductor) , disease , physical therapy , power (physics) , physics , nursing , quantum mechanics
Current clinical practice permits the use of single chamber ventricular or dual chamber pacemakers. However, it is not known which type of pacemaker results in superior clinical and patient outcomes. This is of growing importance because of the higher costs and increased risk of technical failures of dual chamber pacemakers. Patient outcomes can be assessed with quality of life questionnaires, but it is unclear which questionnaires are valid for use in pacemaker patients. This article reappraises studies on quality of life instruments for pacemaker patients. We searched MEDLINE (1985–1998) for studies assessing quality‐of‐life in general and in pacemaker patients. The SF‐36 appeared to be the best among generic questionnaires because of its psychometric characteristics and experience of use. Concerning disease specific instruments, the Karolinska quality of life questionnaire has desirable content validity but lacks more rigorous psychometric validation, which constitutes a serious limitation. Previous studies suggested that implantation of atrioventricular pacemakers improves quality‐of‐life compared to ventricular pacemakers, but since no well‐designed and validated questionnaire exists, these results should be interpreted with caution. The best outcome measure to evaluate quality‐of‐life in pacemaker patients would be a combination of a generic health profile with established reliability and validity supplemented with a cardiovascular assessment adjusted to suit pacemaker patients. By doing so, individual scores can be compared within a disease cohort and to same‐aged, nondiseased persons, as well as other diseased populations. The development and validation of such an instrument is currently needed.