Investigation of Quality of Life Change After Catheter Ablation in Children with Arrhythmia

Objective: Arrhythmia in children is a serious health problem. The role of pharmacological treatment in the treatment of arrhythmia in children is limited. Therefore, ablation has an important role in the treatment of arrhythmia. The aim of this study is to evaluate the quality of life (QoL) after catheter ablation. Materials and Methods: Patients and their parents completed the scales independently but simultaneously, before ablation and 6 months after ablation. Seventy-two children and their parents were included in the study. The QoL Scale was designed as a five-point Likert scale and was divided into 2 age groups, 8-12 years and 13-18 years, with each age group having separate child and parent forms. The scale forms consisted of 4 sub-sections to understand physical, emotional, social, and school functioning. Results: Of the ablations, 65 (90.3%) were successful, 5 (6.9%) were unsuccessful and 2 (2.8%) were suboptimally successful. Accordingly, there was a statistically significant increase in quality of life after successful ablation (P =.001). There was also a significant difference in the magnitude of the increase in QoL according to the type of ablation (P =.025). However, when the sex, age groups, and sub-diagnosis groups of the patients were compared, no significant difference was observed in terms of change in quality of life. Conclusion: This study is the first in Türkiye to investigate the impact of catheter ablation on QoL of children who underwent catheter ablation for various cardiac arrhythmias.