Quality of life among patients with heart failure in tertiary care hospitals of Peshawar, KP, Pakistan; a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Introduction: Quality of life is a multifaceted concept which reflect a number of parameters including different symptoms. These factors are affected by many factors including age, gender, marital status, education levels and socioeconomic status. Quality of life in majority of patients with different medical conditions is significantly affected, however, little is known in patients with heart failure coming to tertiary care hospitals of Peshawar. This study was designed to assess quality of life among heart failure patients and to determine association between quality of life and selected demographic variables.

Material & Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in three tertiary care hospitals; Lady Reading Hospital, Khyber Teaching Hospital and Hayatabad Medical Complex Peshawar. The data was collected through Minnesota Living with Heart Failure questionnaire. This questionnaire consists of twenty-one Likert's scale questions. Frequencies and percentages were calculated for categorical variables. All the Likert's scale questions were computed and mean and standard deviation were calculated. Independent t-test was applied to see mean difference across two categories of independent variables as male and female and ANOVA was applied to see the mean difference of quality of life across different categories including socioeconomic status. Chi square test was applied to see association between quality of life across different socio-demographic variables.

Results: The total number of participants included in this survey was 127, whereas 67 (52.8%) were males and 60 (47.2%) were females. Majority of the participants (52.8%) were of above 50 years of age followed by 40-50 years. A big proportion of the participants (66.1%) was married. Majority of the participants (38.6%) had an education level of matric or below followed by 20.5% and 22.5% intermediate and bachelors, respectively. Nearly half of the participants (44.1%) had an income level from 10,000-20,000 rupees per month. An association of gender was observed with exacerbation of symptoms (p = 0.04), difficulty in climbing upstairs (p <0.001), moving in the yard (p < 0.001), going outdoor (p = 0.036) and sleeping difficulty (p <0.001). Similarly, an association was of marital status was observed with sexual pattern (p =0.037) and making you short of breath (p = 0.002). Scores of quality of life across male and female gender was significantly different (male and female; 45.48 ± 17.18 and 53.82 ± 16.55 (mean±sd) respectively, (p = 0.006). 

Conclusion: The study found that patients were defecient in knowledge regarding medical cardiac conditions and its symptoms. It is deemed important for the nurses to properly assess the level of knowledge of these patients and accordingly educate them so that they could better manage their condition at home.