The Factors Associated with Quality of Sexual Life of Patients with Coronary Artery Bypass Graft Surgery

Tuesday, 13 July 2010

Yi-Hung Lai, MS
Department of Nurse, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan
Ai-Fu Chiou, PhD, RN
Department of Nursing, National Yang-Ming University, Taipei, Taiwan
Wen-Chao Ho, PhD
Institute of Environmental Health, China Medical University, Taichung, Taiwan
Shih-Rong Hsieh, MD
Division of Cardiovascular, Department of Surgery, Taichung Veterans General Hospital, Taichung, Taiwan

Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to understand the associated factors of quality of sexual life in patients with coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to understand the predictors of quality of sexual life in patients with coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

Purpose: This study aimed to investigate the associations of demographic and disease characteristic, psychosocial factors and quality of sexual life in patients with coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery. Methods: A longitudinal, descriptive design was used in this study. Seventy patients were interviewed and completed a structured questionnaire before the CABG surgery and three months after surgery. The instruments used in this study including: Euro SCORE, sexual knowledge scale, spouse communication scale, Hospital Anxiety and Depression scale, Perceived health status, and Quality of Sexual Life Scale. Data was analyzed by using SPSS/PC 14 to obtain descriptive analysis, t-test, one-way ANOVA, Pearson's correlation, and multiple regression analysis. Results: The libido and sexual response of patients were significant limited after CABG. Before surgery, 35.3% of variance of quality of sexual life was explained by age, disease duration, and spouse communication. Patients with younger age, longer disease duration, better sexual knowledge, and better spouse communication had higher quality of sexual life. After surgery, age was the only predictors of quality of sexual life. Quality of sexual life was associated with age, gender, education, disease duration, type of bypass grafting, oral hypoglycemic agents, anxiety, and perceived health status.

Conclusion: This study suggests that health care professionals should evaluate the influence of demographic and disease characteristics, sexual knowledge, and psychosocial factors on quality of sexual life when providing health care for patients with CABG.