Patient satisfaction with care has received little attention within the field of congenital heart disease. Our objective was to examine patient satisfaction with the care received when undergoing open-heart surgery in order to identify the best and worst aspects of peri-operative care. Moreover, we examined whether having contact with a specialised nurse in addition to usual care is associated with higher patient satisfaction levels.

Patient satisfaction was measured by the Satisfaction with Hospital Care Questionnaire, evaluating nine aspects of care by answering individual items and giving overall grades. A top 10 of the best and worst items was selected. Linear regression analyses were used to examine the relationship between having contact with a specialised nurse and patient satisfaction (9 grades), independent of patient characteristics – sex, age, educational level, and health status.

Data were available for 75 patients. Grades ranged from 6.74 for “discharge and after care” to 8.18 for “medical care”. In all, 21% of patients were dissatisfied with the clarity of the information about lifestyle adjustments given by the surgeon. However, patients who had contact with a specialised nurse were more satisfied with the provided information (B-coefficient is 0.497, p-value is 0.038), independent of patient characteristics.

Patients were satisfied with the received care, although there is room for improvement, especially in discharge and after care and the clarity of the information provided by the surgeon. This gap in care can be compensated for by specialised nurses, as patients who were counselled by a specialised nurse were more satisfied with the provided information.

The objective of this study was to compare three patient-based New York Heart Association assessments with cardiologist assessments in outpatients with congenital cardiac disease.

Consecutive adult outpatients completed three questionnaires in a random order: a patient-based translation of the New York Heart Association classes, a self-constructed questionnaire based on the New York Heart Association classes, and the Specific Activity Scale. The treating cardiologist assessed the New York Heart Association class on the same day. Patient–cardiologist agreement was assessed by calculating percent agreement and weighted kappa. We also explored the level of agreement for patients without co-morbidity.

In all, 86 adults – with a median age of 35.8 years – including 46 women participated. An agreement of 75.6% (weighted kappa is 0.43; probability is smaller than 0.01), 70.6% (weighted kappa is 0.44; probability is smaller than 0.01), and 74.4% (weighted kappa is 0.28; probability is smaller than 0.01) was found between the cardiologist assessment and the patient-based translation, self-constructed questionnaire, and the Specific Activity Scale, respectively. The patient-based translation equally over- and underestimated the New York Heart Association class, whereas the self-constructed questionnaire overestimated and the Specific Activity Scale underestimated the New York Heart Association class. Agreement levels for patients without co-morbidity were higher than agreement levels for the total group.

The patient-based translation yielded adequate agreement with cardiologist-assessed New York Heart Association class, showed equal over- and underestimation, and was easy to complete. The patient-based translation with the instruction to only consider functional impairments caused by the congenital cardiac defect is recommended in future studies of outpatients with congenital cardiac disease.