Background Every minute a patient dies because of acute coronary heart disease in the USA. To prevent death, multiple cardiac procedures are done; however, these procedures do not guarantee a better quality of life. No research has been conducted in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region regarding quality of life of patients post cardiac surgery. The aim of this study was to explore the quality of life of patients who underwent open cardiac surgeries in King Faisal Cardiac Center-King Abdulaziz Medical City-Western Region of Saudi Arabia during 2015–2017. The study assessed the quality of life of surviving patients and identified the association between demographic characteristics and quality of life domains.

Methods A cross-sectional retrospective study was done at King Faisal Cardiac Center. A convenience sample was used by identifying all patients who underwent open cardiac surgery between June 2015 and May 2017. 163 patients were eligible for our study, of whom 94 were valid for analysis. These patients were sent the SF-36 questionnaire, which is proven to evaluate quality of life. The survey is divided into eight major domains, which were reported as mean scores. Correlation was done using the Mann–Whitney U test, using a cutoff p value of 0.05.

Results The study reported that subscales of role limitations due to emotional problems and physical health were the lowest of the eight domains. However, the emotional well-being and the pain subscales were the highest of them all. We found that cardiovascular diseases, compared with other comorbidities, had the biggest effect on lowering quality of life.

Conclusion The results of the present study indicate that quality of life of patients who underwent cardiac surgery is affected negatively. The immediate post-operative duration is a vital factor that impacts long-term quality of life; therefore, hospital services need to increase their efforts regarding this critical period. Further studies should be done to explore the reasons behind these findings.