Comparison of the quality of life before and after angioplasty in people with coronary artery disease (CAD)

Aim. The aim of this study was to compare quality of life (QoL) before and after angioplasty in people with coronary artery disease.
Background. The quality of life among people with CAD who undergo angioplasty treatment is of great interest because of the increasing number of patients receiving this treatment modality.
Method. In this descriptive analytical study, 473 patients with CAD admitted to all teaching hospitals of medical sciences universities located in Tehran were recruited through stratified random sampling over the years 2015-16.Quality of life in patients was measured before angioplasty, and one month and three months after angioplasty using SF-36 questionnaire. Reliability of this questionnaire has been reported in previous studies as 0.77-0.90 (Cronbach's alpha coefficient). Data were analyzed by Wilcoxon, Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis tests in SPSS version 23.
Findings. The results showed that angioplasty has increased the mean score of quality of life in total and also, in all dimensions, one and three months after surgery (P≤0.0001). The relationship of quality of life with all demographic variables (age, marital status, occupation, education level, place of residence, conditions of residence and type of insurance) was statistically significant except for gender.
Conclusion. The angioplasty is well able to improve the quality of life in different dimensions in the short term.Angioplasty can be recommended as a procedure with strong and positive effect on the health conditions and quality of life in people with CAD.