Associations Between Frailty, Family Functioning, and Quality of Life in Adolescents With Congenital Heart Disease: A Cross-Sectional Study.
Chen-Yan Huang, Ching-I Chen, Hung-Tao Chung and 5 others
PMID 40062455WHAT IT FOUND
Adolescents with congenital heart disease who were frail or had moderate or severe family dysfunction reported lower quality of life.
Frailty was especially linked to exhaustion and reduced activity in those with worse heart function.
Key findings
01In adjusted regression models, adolescents classified as frail reported lower quality of life than those classified as robust.
02Moderate or severe family dysfunction predicted lower quality of life, while 69.9% of participants reported positive family function.
03Frailty prevalence ranged from 18.5% to 29.8% across indicators, and participants with New York Heart Association class II or III were more likely to be frail, especially for exhaustion and diminished physical activity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for RNs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was done at two hospitals in northern Taiwan, so the results may not apply to adolescents with congenital heart disease in other settings. Because the design was cross-sectional, it cannot show whether frailty or family dysfunction caused lower quality of life, or whether lower quality of life was related to them in another direction. Some key measures were self-reported, so social desirability bias may have influenced answers. The study did not assess other possible influences on quality of life, such as peer relationships. The authors note that excluding participants with cognitive impairment may underestimate the true level of cognitive problems in adolescents with congenital heart disease. Very few participants were in New York Heart Association class III, so class II and class III were combined. The frailty indicators were adapted from older adults and were not a congenital-heart-disease-specific adolescent scale.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The study was funded by the National Science and Technology Council.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the associations as proof that frailty or family dysfunction cause lower quality of life, or that treating them will improve quality of life. This was a cross-sectional study, so it cannot establish causation.