الملخص الإنجليزي
Abstract:
Background: Heart failure is a chronic progressive disease that affects the patients in all aspects of life as well as impacting their physical, social, psychological, emotional, and spiritual health. Nursing interventions to improve the quality of life for patients with heart failure are defensible. Heart failure treatment's goal is to maximize life expectancy, improve quality of life, and prevent disease progression and hospital readmissions.
Aim: This study aimed to assess the perceived quality of life of Bahraini patients diagnosed with heart failure by using Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire version three.
Methodology: A quantitative, cross-sectional survey was conducted among 250 Bahraini patients aged 18 years and older and diagnosed with stage three and four heart failure. Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire version three was employed to obtain data from participants on their socio-demographic characteristics, and their perceived quality of life.
Results: The mean age of all participants was 69.0 ± 8.1 years and 78% were males. Almost half of the patients with third/fourth degree heart failure had difficulties in earning a living (48.4%) since they had long periods of hospital stays (49.2%). The majority of the patients with third /fourth degree heart failure had a poor quality of life (74.8%, n=187 patients), while (21.6%, n=54 patients) of them had a moderate quality of life and only (3.6%, n=9 patients) had a good quality of life.
Conclusion: The quality of life among Bahraini patients diagnosed with third/fourth degree heart failure is generally poor. Multiple physical and emotional aspects of patients' life are affected. Further, advanced age, low level of education, not currently married and low income were shown to be associated with of poor quality of life. A need exists to include a quality of life assessment tool as part of the management of these patients.
Practice Implication (optional): Understanding the quality of life of patients with heart failure can offer a unique insight to healthcare workers to manage the disease effectively, involve active participation of the patient and promote holistic and targeted care. Nurses should play an essential role in conducting pre-admission assessment of quality of life for all patients diagnosed with heart failure during their admission or outpatient visits to understand the impact of the disease on their lives and to improve the management plan in collaboration with other healthcare workers.
Keywords: Heart Failure; Quality of life; Nurses; Patients
