Evaluation of the effect of health behavior improvement training given to chronic HEART failure patients on chronic disease self-management and disease symptoms

Heart failure is a syndrome that occurs with symptoms and signs related to cardiac dysfunction and is one of the leading health problems experienced by more than 26 million people in the world. This study was designed to investigate the effect of systematic education given to patients with chronic heart failure on their quality of life and chronic disease self-management. The study was carried out between January 1, 2023 and April 1, 2023, with 60 patients over the age of 18 who were hospitalized with the diagnosis of heart failure in the Cardiology Service of Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University Hospital and had heart failure for at least 1 year. Quality of life was evaluated with the "Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire" (MLHFQ) and disease self-management was evaluated with the "Chronic Disease Self-Management Scale" during hospitalization. The patients were given "Training on Living with Heart Failure" during their discharge. The quality of life and self-management of the patients were re-evaluated using the same scales during their outpatient controls 1 month later. The pre-training MLHFQ score average of the participants was 64.2±19.42, and the post-training MLHFQ score average was 44.01±17.65. The mean score of the participants on the Chronic Disease Self-Management Scale before the education was 2.2±0.40, and the mean of the total scores after the education was 3.13±0.42. It was observed that the applied education was highly effective on patients' self-management and quality of life (p<0.05). It has been concluded that "Education for Living with Heart Failure" is the most important part of nursing care in terms of providing self-management of patients and increasing their quality of life. Keywords: heart failure, self-management, quality of life, patient education