Abstract
Objectives: Women before aortocoronary bypass surgery have a worse health related quality of life (HRQoL) than men. Yet it is not clear how this gender difference relates to a less favourable risk factor profile of women compared to men.
Methods: The sample consisted of 1587 patients (23% women), who filled out a questionnaire on HRQoL, the SF-36, 1 –3 days before coronary bypass surgery. Two hundred ninety-nine women and 299 men with a similar clinical risk factor profile were matched on the propensity score and were compared with respect to their HRQoL.
Results: The preoperative marked gender differences in HRQoL were reduced in all subscales of the SF-36. However, except for general health perception and physical pain, they remained significant. An inspection of effect sizes showed the greatest decrease in gender differences in physical functioning (d = 0.64 versus d = 0.42), followed by physical role function (d = 0.46 versus d = 0.25), physical pain (d = 0.20 versus d = 0.07), and general health perception (d = 0.20 versus d = 0.07). In the mental subscales, except for vitality (d = 0.52 versus d = 0.33), matching led to only marginal changes.
Conclusion: Particularly in the physical subscales of the SF-36 matching led to a decrease in gender differences. In coronary bypass patients, female gender seems to constitute an independent predictor of worse HRQoL.
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