Health-related quality of life and extent of self-care practice among heart failure patients in Ethiopia

Abstract

Background: Heart Failure (HF) results in an immense impact on the patients' Health-related quality of life (HRQOL). Heart failure patients HRQOL is dependent on the patients' level of engagement in self-care behaviors. Therefore this study aimed to determine HF patients' health-related quality of life and its relationship with self-care behaviors. Methods: An institutional-based study was conducted on 284 heart failure patients at the University of Gondar referral hospital. The data were collected using a structured questionnaire-based interview. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 20. Both descriptive and analytical statistical tests were utilized. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was done to determine the association between HRQOL and different independent variables. Variables with a p-value< 0.05 were considered as a significant predictor of the outcome variable. Results: The finding of this study showed that more than sixty-six percent of the study population were females. The overall mean score of HF patients' quality of life was 46.4 ± 22.4 and the physical and emotional subscale mean score was 20.2 ± 9.8 and 10.5 ± 6.8 respectively. The majority of the study participants 147(51.8%) had poor quality of life. The multinomial logistic regression analysis result showed that rural residence (odds ratio 2.41, 95% CI, 1.23 to 4.71) and inadequate level of self-care practice (odds ratio 2.61, 95% CI, 1.43 to 4.78) were independent predictors of poor HRQOL. The correlation analysis also showed that there was a significant negative relationship between HF patients' HRQOL score and Self-care practice score (r = − 0.127, P = 0.032). Conclusion: Overall, the majority of HF patients had poor HRQOL. Heart failure patients' HRQOL was significantly associated with place of residence and patients' level of self-care practice. Therefore, patients with HF are required to learn the benefit of self-care behaviors to improve their quality of life and to decrease the disease progression. Furthermore, HF patients who come from rural areas need special emphasis in each follow-up evaluation.

The Self‐Care of Heart Failure Index version 7.2: Further psychometric testing

“…We found significant correlations with generic and disease-specific quality of life dimensions on the KCCQ and with NYHA functional class and BNP level. These correlations, even though not very strong, support SCHFI v.7.2 validity because prior studies have shown that better self-care is associated with better patient quality of life (Seid, 2020;Vellone et al, 2017), a decrease in BNP level (Moon et al, 2018), and better functional class (lower NYHA; Vellone et al, 2017). Indirectly, the results of this study further support our premise that self-care improves patient outcomes.…”

Evaluation of Quality of Life and Self-Care Among Individuals with Heart Failure

“…In our study, we found that individuals with heart failure had low quality of life. Similar results have been obtained in other studies [32,33].…”

Outcomes of nurse‐led telecoaching intervention for patients with heart failure: A systematic review and meta‐analysis of randomised controlled trials

“…Both of these concepts have unique interrelationships in HF patients. Adequate self‐care behaviour positively impacts QoL, while a higher QoL can also increase the ability to perform HF self‐care adequately (Asadi et al, 2019; Seid, 2020). Based on this interrelationship, an intervention that can manage both concepts that may be needed, and nurse‐led telecoaching has the opportunity to manage it.…”