Determinants of the quality of life of care partners in the context of surgical cardiovascular interventions: A qualitative study

Parmis Mirzadeh, Eric M. Horlick, Maral Ouzounian, Mark Osten, Miranda Witheford, Rima Styra

Abstract

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death globally, and numerous patients undergoing cardiovascular surgery rely heavily on informal care partners, often spouses or close family members for support.

Introduction

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death globally [1], affecting nearly half the adult population [2]. A broad range of cardiovascular surgery is available, varying significantly in terms of invasiveness, risk of complications, surgery duration, and post operative care requirements.

Materials and methods

This study utilized semi-structured interviews with 20 care partners at a tertiary cardiac care centre. Eligible participants for this study included care partners of patients that have undergone or were in hospital scheduled to undergo cardiovascular surgery.

Results

Care partner and patient characteristics are shown in Table 1. Overall, 20 care partners were interviewed in this study, 80% were female, and 20% were male. Just over half (55%) were the patient’s spouse or partner, while the remaining were the patient’s children (30%), parent (5%), sibling (5%), or grandchildren (5%).

Discussion

This study contributes to the literature by exploring the determinants influencing the overall well-being of care partners supporting hospitalized patients who have undergone or are undergoing cardiovascular surgery.

Conclusions

This study contributes novel insights to the existing literature by identifying factors that influence the QoL of care partners supporting hospitalized patients who have undergone or are undergoing cardiovascular surgery.

Citation: Mirzadeh P, Horlick EM, Ouzounian M, Osten M, Witheford M, Styra R (2026) Determinants of the quality of life of care partners in the context of surgical cardiovascular interventions: A qualitative study. PLoS One 21(1): e0341568. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0341568

Editor: Antony Bayer, Cardiff University, UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND NORTHERN IRELAND

Received: September 24, 2025; Accepted: January 8, 2026; Published: January 27, 2026

Copyright: © 2026 Mirzadeh et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: Data from this study involves human participant qualitative interview content, which cannot be publicly shared due to ethical and legal restrictions intended to protect participant privacy and confidentiality. Although there are no direct identifiers, the narrative and context-rich nature of qualitative data may create a risk of participant de-identification. Therefore, the academic institution where this data was conducted has restrictions on the data. University Health Network, which is an academic institution, affiliated with the University of Toronto, is the owner of this data, and they retain a data repository and provide an arms-length data access committee, which reviews all requests to ensure that secondary use complies with ethical and privacy requirements. Requests for data access should be directed to this committee with fulfillment of legal and ethical requirements including assuring institution of REB approval for the proposed study and entering into a legal agreement with the institution. To begin the formal data request process, individuals can contact Carl.Virtanen@uhnresearch.ca.

Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.