Factors Associated with Pre-Cardiopulmonary Arrest Signs within the First 24 Hours Post Open Heart Surgery

Abstract

Objective: To study the relationship between cardiopulmonary bypass time, aortic cross-clamp time during surgery, Left Ventricular Ejection Fraction, co-morbidity, redo cardiac surgery, age, body mass index, and pre-operative depression with pre-cardiopulmonary arrest signs within the first 24 hours post open heart surgery.

Methods: The sample comprised 194 patients who underwent open heart surgery in a university hospital, Bangkok, Thailand. Research instruments included a demographic data recording form, illness and a related data on treatment recording form, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), The Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and pre-cardiopulmonary arrest index. Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient and point biserial correlation were employed to analyze data.

Results: The majority of the samples were males (55.7%) with an average age of 59.9 years, and 41.7% had severe precardiopulmonary arrest scores (≥ 8 points). Factors associated with pre-cardiopulmonary arrest signs within the first 24 hours post open heart surgery were cardiopulmonary bypass time, aortic cross-clamp time, CCI score, pre-operative depression (r = .24, .23, .20, -.20 ; p < .01) and redo surgery (r = .16; p < .05), respectively.

Conclusion: Patients who undergo open heart surgery should be closely monitored for pre-cardiopulmonary arrest signs, espe- cially those who had prolonged cardiopulmonary bypass time and aortic cross-clamp time, have high co-morbidity scores, or experienced redo cardiac surgery. Additional studies should be conducted to explore the effect of pre-operative depression on pre-cardiopulmonary arrest signs after cardiac surgery.