The Study On The Quality Of Life Of Chinese Heart Failure Patients And Their Family Caregivers

Objective: Heart failure (HF) is a chronic condition that associated with highmorbidity, mortality and impairs the quality of life.Quality of life (QOL) has becomean important aspect in assessing the burden and treatment process of this disease butlittle is known about factors relating to QOL of the Chinese HF patients and theirfamily caregivers. The aims of this study were to determine the factors affectingpatients and their caregivers’ QOL and compare the QOL of HF patients and theircaregivers.Design: This is a comparative descriptive study of QOL in HF patients and theirfamily care givers. The study was conducted in a general teaching hospital in Wuhancity of P.R. China.The study population consisted of200couples all of them shouldbe20years old or more and all the patients had been diagnosed with HF.Methods: The data were collected using Short Form36(SF-36) in Chinese versionquestionnaires of the QOL for the HF patients and their family caregiver and thedemographic and clinical data were collected form the patients’ medical records andtheir family caregivers.Results: The mean age of the HF patients was60.96years and the mean age of theirfamily caregivers was44.48years. This study indicated that QOL score of the HFpatients was less than their family caregivers and there was no middle correlationbetween the dimensions of the QOL of HF patients and their family care givers.In this study, it was determined that HF patients’ QOL was affected by gender,employment status and education level and it was not to affected by marital status andnew York heart association classification, Also this study was determined that heart failure family caregivers’ quality of life was affected by gender and it was not to beaffected by employment status, education level, marital status and New York HeartAssociation classification (NYHA).Conclusions: the finding of this study is clearly showed that HF seriously affectspatients’ and their family caregivers’ QOL and caregivers have better QOL thanpatients. Nurses should assess the factors that affecting patients and their familycaregivers and providing them with the experiences and knowledge that would affectthe burden and the QOL of HF patients and their family caregivers.