How patients affected by heart failure and other chronic conditions perform general and specific self-care behaviors

Type of funding sources: Public grant(s) – National budget only. Main funding source(s): Centre of Excellence for Nursing Scholarship (CECRI), Rome, Italy.

Older adults affected by chronic conditions (i.e., heart failure or any other chronic condition) need to perform self-care. It includes behaviors to maintain a healthy lifestyle (self-care maintenance), monitor signs and symptoms of chronic diseases (self-care monitoring), and manage them (self-care management). Performing self-care, allows patients to improve their quality of life, reduce hospital admission rates, and mortality. In patients affected by Heart Failure (HF) and other chronic conditions, also specific self-care behaviors are needed. To date, no prior studies have investigated general and specific self-care behaviors in patients with HF and other chronic conditions.

Investigate how patients affected by HF and other chronic conditions perform general and specific self-care.

Cross-sectional study. We collected data from April 2017 to October 2021 in Italy. Patients with HF and other chronic conditions with more than 65 y/o were enrolled in community and outpatient settings. The Self-Care of Chronic Illness Inventory (SC-CII) and The Self-Care of Heart Failure Index (SCHFI) were used to measure generic and specific self-care behaviors, respectively. Values ≥70 indicate adequate self-care behaviors. Paired t-test was performed to identify differences between SC-CII and SCHFI scores.

A sample of 369 patients with HF was enrolled. 53.3% was female with a mean age of 78.91(±7.41) years, and a median of 3 chronic conditions. The two chronic conditions most frequently associated with HF were Hypertension (75%) and Diabetes Mellitus (70%). Results showed inadequate general self-care maintenance (66.11±14.7) and management (57.77±20.1). Instead, general self-care monitoring was adequate (76.26±20.4). Specific HF self-care maintenance, monitoring and management were inadequate and equal to 57.54 (±17.24), 53.41 (±25.32) and 54.48 (±20.02), respectively. Specific self-care in HF is significantly lower than general self-care behaviors (p<0.001).

Patients showed more difficulties performing general self-care maintenance and management respect self-care monitoring. Regarding specific HF self-care, patients perform inadequate self-care behaviors in all dimensions. Knowing the lower self-care behaviors is important for clinicians to develop tailored interventions. In particular, patients with HF and other chronic conditions need to be supported in specific self-care behaviors.