Psychological wellbeing in survivors of cardiac arrest, and its relationship to neurocognitive function

Objective: To characterise psychological wellbeing in survivors of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA), and examine its relationship to cognitive function. Patients: Forty-one highly functioning cardiac arrest survivors were drawn from the follow-up cohort of a randomised controlled trial of initial airway management in OHCA (ISRCTN: 18528625). Design: Psychological wellbeing was assessed with a self-report questionnaire (the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale; DASS) and cognitive function was examined using the Delayed Matching to Samples (DMS) test from the Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery (CANTAB). Results: Mean anxiety levels were significantly higher in this patient group than normative data drawn from the general population (p = 0.046). Multiple regression analyses showed that cognitive function, measured by the DMS, did not predict any of the DASS scales. Conclusions: Anxiety plays an important role in determining perceived QoL in high functioning survivors, but psychological wellbeing is unrelated to cognitive function in this group. To achieve a comprehensive assessment of wellbeing, resuscitation research should consider outcomes beyond neurological function alone. Crown Copyright (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.