Measuring quality of life after a cardiac arrest

Description

Well-being (and suffering) in patients who have survived a cardiac arrest out-of-hospital is a phenomenon with many dimensions that cannot be described in a simple manner. Most measurement instruments that have been used to date have focused on the patients' quality of life where well-being plays a small part at best.
A new quality of life instrument for measuring the dimensions of well-being is being used in a larger population from the Swedish national registry of cardiac arrests out-of-hospital. The instrument has undergone validity and reliability testing in a previous study and has been tested on a smaller population of surviving cardiac arrest patients.
This quality of life instrument can yield knowledge about how surviving patients are feeling on the basis of aspects such as life satisfaction, subjective well-being, sense of coherence and how the life-changing event has affected the survivor. This knowledge is important for follow-up care, to be able to support patients and their close family and friends on issues that affect well-being.

Subjects

Caring Science

Research areas

Integrated nursing science

Researchers

Bremer, Anders

Financiers

University of Borås

Start date

2011-01-01