Psychosocial status predicts mortality in patients with life-threatening ventricular arrhythmias

Background Quality-of-life (QoL) instruments evaluate various aspects of physical, mental, and emotional health, but how these psychosocial characteristics impact long-term outcome after cardiac arrest and ventricular tachycardia (VT) is unknown. Objective The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship of baseline QoL scores with long-term survival of patients enrolled in the Antiarrhythmics Versus Implantable Defibrillators (AVID) trial. Methods Formal QoL measures included SF-36 mental and physical components, Patient Concerns Checklist, and Ferrans and Powers Quality-of-Life Index–Cardiac Version. Multivariate Cox regression was used to assess the association of survival and these measures, adjusting for index arrhythmia type, gender, race, age, ejection fraction, history of congestive heart failure, antiarrhythmic therapy, and beta-blocker use. Results During mean follow-up of 546 ± 356 days, 129 deaths occurred among 740 patients. Higher baseline SF-36 physical summary scores ( P