Self-care behaviors and related factors in chronic heart failure patients

Abstract

Introduction: Heart failure is a chronic disease that requires special lifelong self-care behaviors.These patients require to have self-care behaviors to confront their disease problems. Therefore, this study was designed and conducted to determine  the  status  of  self-care behaviors and its related factors. Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 150 patients with chronic  heart  failure who were chosen purposively and were hospitalized in the  cardiac  wards  of Tohid hospital in Sanandaj. Data collection tools included  two questionnaires. The first one was a demographic questionnaire and  information about the disease. The second one was the European scale of self-care behaviors of heart failure patients which were completed through patient interviews. The collected data was analyzed by using SPSS16. Results: The  average  rate  of  self-care  behaviors  by  most patients was (39.54±7.22) and it has correlation with factors such as: Level of education, place of residence and education about the disease (P 0.05). Conclusion: The results of this study indicated that the level of self-care behaviors  in  patients with  heart  failure  was moderate. Therefore, it is required to train and educate patients with chronic heart failure.