Health-Related Quality of Life of Heart Transplant Recipients Living in a Developing Country

Background. Heart transplantation (HT) is the treatment for patients with end-stage heart failure (HF). It is hoped that the procedure increases both survival rates and the level of health-related quality of life (HRQoL), which may, however, be compromised by post-transplant complications. The objective of this study was to analyze the level of HRQoL in HT recipients and considered the influence of variables from social and clinical contexts. Materials and Methods. This is a cross-sectional study of HT recipients. The level of HRQoL was assessed by the World Health Organization Quality of LifeeBREF (WHOQOL-BREF) questionnaire during outpatient consultation. Results. This study analyzed 186 HT recipients from a total of 192 eligible patients. The median level of HRQoL was >= 67.8 points in all domains of the WHOQOL-BREF questionnaire (physical, psychological, social relationships, and environment) and general score of perception of the level of quality of life (QoL) and health. Variables such as age, ethnicity, per capita income, time from last hospitalization, number of current medications, and number of hospitalizations after HT were significantly related to at least 1 domain of the WHOQOL-BREF. Conclusion. In this study, HRQoL of HT recipients living in a developing country can be considered satisfactory given the high score obtained in all domains of WHOQOL-BREF and in the perception of the level of QoL and health.