Reducing Anxiety among Heart Failure Patients by Doing the Six-Minute Walk

Abstract

Heart failure has been one of the emerging diseases in terms of prevalence, morbidity, and mortality, which cause a physical and psychological impact on society. Anxiety was found as the most common issue among them. Inadequate anxiety management leads to the treatment compliance, aggravate functional status, prolonge hospitalization and increase mortality rate, thus effective management is essential. The present study was to investigate the impact of a safety exercise of the six-minute walk in reducing anxiety level among heart failure patients. A quasi-experimental study was performed at a cardiovascular outpatient of the acute care setting in Indonesia. The anxiety level of respondents was measured by using the Zung Self-rating Anxiety Scale. A descriptive and paired t-test was performed for data analysis. Fifteen heart failure outpatients enrolled in the study, most were male with the maximum age of 78 years. More than half of respondents experienced anxiety during pre-test in the first week of this program, then their anxiety level reduced after a moth implementation of the six-minute walk. This study provides baseline information reflecting the effectiveness of the six-minute walk in reducing anxiety level among heart failure patients.