Health-related quality of life and employment status of liver transplant patients

Abstract

Health-related quality of life (HRQoL) is one preferable outcome measure of medical interventions such as liver transplantation (LT). The aim of this study was to compare HRQoL of LT patients with that of the general population and to assess the employment status of LT patients. HRQoL was measured with the 15D instrument, a validated, nondisease-specific, 15-dimensional, self-administered HRQoL instrument. The questionnaire was sent to all adult LT patients in Finland (401 patients) alive in June 2007. The response rate was 89% (353 patients). The results were compared to those of 6050 age-standardized and gender-standardized controls from the general population. LT patients (mean age, 55 years; range, 20-82) had slightly worse HRQoL scores than the general population (mean 15D score, 0.889 versus 0.907; P Ͻ 0.002). Survival time and retransplantation did not affect HRQoL significantly in age-adjusted and gender-adjusted analyses. HRQoL decreased with increasing age (P Ͻ 0.0001). Patients transplanted for acute liver failure (ALF) or chronic liver disease (CLD) had significantly worse HRQoL than the general population (P ϭ 0.014 and P ϭ 0.040). Forty-four percent of working-age patients were employed at the time of the study. Persons that were employed had significantly better HRQoL than those unemployed (15D scores, 0.934 versus 0.859; P Ͻ 0.0001). Eighty-seven percent of patients experienced improved working capacity after LT. Early retirement was the most common cause of unemployment (56% of unemployed patients), and those patients presented with worse HRQoL than patients unemployed for other reasons. In conclusion, HRQoL of LT patients is very close to that of the general population. Older age, CLD, and ALF impair HRQoL. Employment is an indicator of HRQoL. Liver Transpl 15:64-72, 2009.

Patient-reported health outcomes in long-term lung transplantation survivors: A prospective cohort study

“…This difference was pronounced in the psychological and social domains of HRQoL. The relationship between having a job and a better perceived HRQoL was also found in previous studies in the general population43, 44 and other patient populations 45, 46. Employment is important to the patients, as it provides them with an income, opportunities to structure their daily lives, and satisfying social interactions, all of which can affect HRQoL.…”

Knowledge and Daily Living Activities of Post Liver Transplant Clients

“…The finding of the current study may be due to; the average age of the studied subjects was 50 years. [19] This was in the same line with the study done by Saab et al, (2007) at University of California, who stated that, the ability of liver transplant clients to return to their daily activities including employment is controversial and the most important factors affecting employment include age at time of transplantation, duration of disability prior to transplantation, and physical/general health performance status. [32] From the researcher point of view return to active and productive life is a key goal of current liver transplantation.…”

Quality of life in liver transplant recipients and the influence of sociodemographic factors

“…The authors found that among 347 respondents, a third of all patients was employed during the study period, without differences depending on the etiology of indication. Among respondents of working age (20-65 years old), with n = 268, 44% were active and these had better QOL than unemployed respondents of working age, with clinically important and statistically significant difference (p <0.0001) (24) . The predominant income of the study participants was considered low because most received up to two minimum wages (43.3%) and three to four (25.3%), totaling 68.5% of the sample.…”