Patient reported QOL and EV‐ICD: Response to letter from Kataoka and Imamura (2024)

Abstract

The subscale of Device-Related Distress directly queries feelings of disfigurement from the device and this may account for the differences.Finally, the question was raised of selection bias related to the possibility of patients at risk for decreased QOL or patients with smaller body habitus leading to possible avoidance of being enrolled in this study. We do not have any data to refute or accept this limitation as this is the initial sample of patients considering EV-ICDs.However, as noted in the paper, 3 we do acknowledge that the process of agreeing to a novel device may induce a degree of positive acceptance bias in patients and in their reporting of outcomes. As a result, we indicated that cautious interpretation of this data is needed until full randomized studies could disentangle these common psychological processes.