Trajectory of self-care behaviour in patients with heart failure: the impact on clinical outcomes and influencing factors

Maria Liljeroos, Naoko P Kato, Martje Hl van der Wal, Maaike Brons, Marie Louise Luttik, Dirk J van Veldhuisen, Anna Strömberg, Tiny Jaarsma

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Patients' self-care behaviour is still suboptimal in many heart failure (HF) patients and underlying mechanisms on how to improve self-care need to be studied.

AIMS: (1) To describe the trajectory of patients' self-care behaviour over 1 year, (2) to clarify the relationship between the trajectory of self-care and clinical outcomes, and (3) to identify factors related to changes in self-care behaviour.

METHODS: In this secondary analysis of the COACH-2 study, 167 HF patients (mean age 73 years) were included. Self-care behaviour was assessed at baseline and after 12 months using the European Heart Failure Self-care Behaviour scale. The threshold score of ⩾70 was used to define good self-care behaviour.

RESULTS: Of all patients, 21% had persistent poor self-care behaviour, and 27% decreased from good to poor. Self-care improved from poor to good in 10%; 41% had a good self-care during both measurements. Patients who improved self-care had significantly higher perceived control than those with persistently good self-care at baseline. Patients who decreased their self-care had more all-cause hospitalisations (35%) and cardiovascular hospitalisations (26%) than patients with persistently good self-care (2.9%, p < 0.05). The prevalence of depression increased at 12 months in both patients having persistent poor self-care (0% to 21%) and decreasing self-care (4.4% to 22%, both p < 0.05).

CONCLUSION: Perceived control is a positive factor to improve self-care, and a decrease in self-care is related to worse outcomes. Interventions to reduce psychological distress combined with self-care support could have a beneficial impact on patients decreasing or persistently poor self-care behaviour.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)421-432
JournalEuropean journal of cardiovascular nursing : journal of the Working Group on Cardiovascular Nursing of the European Society of Cardiology
Volume19
Issue number5
Early online date29 Jan 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2020

Keywords

  • nursing
  • heart failure
  • patients

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