A Life Less Ordinary Socio-economic aspects of adult congenital heart disease

The dramatically improved survival and clinical outcomes of children with congenital heart disease (CHD) has allowed attention to shift towards less basic, but nevertheless very important other issues influencing course of life of adults with CHD. This includes aspects of education, employment and career, personal development, relationships and offspring, insurability, lifestyle, quality of life and the chance to develop other diseases. Care for adults with CHD should therefore not only comprise care for survival and medical treatment, but also include attention for socio-economic aspects and the challenges that are thereby faced. To be able to provide such care, more insight into these aspects is needed. Unfortunately, attention within the medical field for socio-economic outcomes is still limited.
This thesis describes several studies that were conducted to gain more insight in socio-economic aspects of adults with CHD.