Analyses of the Studies on Cardiovascular Disease-Specific Quality of Life Reported in Korea

Lee, Eun Hyun; Tak, Seung Jai; Song, Yeoungsuk

Abstract

PURPOSE
The purpose of the present study was to analyze and evaluate prior studies published in Korea on the cardiovascular disease-related quality of life, in order to make recommendations for further research. METHODS: A total of 15 studies were selected from four databases(Digital library of Research Information Center for Health, Korea Medical Database, MedRic, and National Assembly Library). The selected studies were analyzed according to criteria, such as diagnosis/operation, used instrument, generic/specific instrument, dimension of quality of life, translation/ back-translation, sample size, reliability, validity, responsiveness, number of items, type of scale, time required, and independent variables. RESULTS: Of the 15 cardiovascular disease-related quality of life studies, approximately half of them were conducted with hypertension or ischemic heart disease patients. All studies asserted that the concept of quality of life had multidimensional attributes. With respect to the questionnaire used for measuring the quality of life, only one study used a cardiovascular disease specific- instrument and most studies did not consider whether or not the validity of their instrument had been established. In addition, when using questionnaires developed in other languages, only one study employed a translation/ back-translation technique. The types of variables tested for their influence on quality of life were quite limited. CONCLUSION: It is recommended to develop a reliability and validity established cardiovascular disease specific- quality of life for Korean patients and to identify associated new variables.