The quality of life of patients with coronary artery disease before and after coronary artery bypass graft

Heart is one of the vital organs in the human body which is a durable organ and efficient pump. The human heart works tirelessly from the moment of formation and it begins beating until the moment it stops. On an average life time, the human heart beats more than twenty two and half billion times without taking rest. The heart beats continuously and unlike other muscles of the body, it cannot stop to rest when tired and worn from work. Research Approach: This study adopted a non experimental descriptive and comparative survey approach.The study was conducted at the cardio thoracic surgical out patient department of one of the selected hospital at Sahdol.The population comprised of all patients with coronary artery bypass graft attending the cardio thoracic surgical outpatient department of the selected hospital at Sahdol at the time of the study.The sample consisted of 75 patients with coronary artery bypass graft based on the criteria for sample selection. Non probability convenient sampling technique was adopted for the selection of sample. 64 samples (85.3%) were able to carry out the household activities such as cooking, washing the cloth, sweeping, grinding, ironing, gardening, minor repairing work at home moderately well and 11(14.7%) were able to perform these activities very well before surgery. However after the surgery the percentage of samples who performed the household activities very well increased by 5.3%.cBefore surgery 59 samples (78.7%) showed good interest in reading newspaper and watching TV. However after surgery this number reduced to 51, a reduction of 10.7%. that majority of the samples (84-94.7%) had good social well being before surgery. However after surgery the samples showed moderate quality of life in social wellbeing. Statistically there was no significant difference between the mean score of personal and household activities ( t-0.239 and 0.054,df=74,p<0.0 ) before and after surgery and there was significant difference between the mean score of outdoor and other activities (t-3.17and3.8,df=74,p<0.01 ) before and after surgery. The study concludes that the quality of life of patients who had undergone coronary artery bypass graft was better before surgery but after surgery the quality of life was better in physical well being whereas psychological and social wellbeing was reduced.