Medthods: The sample comprised 194 patients who underwent open heart surgery in a university hospital, Bangkok, Thailand.
Research instruments included a demographic data recording fonn. 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.
Rc~mHs: 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 (:2:: 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.
Cunclusion: Patients who undergo open heart surgery should be closely monitored for pre-cardiopulmonary arrest signs, especially
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.