title: Measurement of health-related quality of life in chronic heart failure, from a nursing perspective-a review of the literature.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Living with chronic heart failure (CHF) is distressful and affects daily life. Because of the lack of a cure for CHF, there has been a progressive interest in using health-related quality of life (Hr-QoL) as an outcome measurement of the treatment in patients with CHF.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this review was to describe the instruments/questionnaires used in different studies in the measurement of Hr-QoL in patients with CHF, and how they were put into operation as seen from a nursing perspective.
  
  
  METHODS
  MEDLINE and CINAHL databases were searched from January 1995 to June 2002, by using the keywords CHF, heart failure, QoL and Hr-QoL. A total of 33 articles were analysed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty-two different Hr-QoL questionnaires were found. Generic, disease-specific and battery approaches were different ways used to measure Hr-QoL. To assess/describe Hr-QoL, evaluate the impact of interventions and examine relations/predictors were three main objectives. However, different aspects of the concept Hr-QoL, influencing factors, how to implement the questionnaires and a lack of unified CHF criteria existed.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  To create a guideline for the measurement of Hr-QoL in CHF patients is of great importance for nurses and might generate homogeneity in the measurement methods and promote the scientific approach in the nursing care process.
authors.affiliation: Department of Cardiology, Linköping University Hospital, Linköping S-58185, Sweden. peterjohansson@mbox309.swipnet.se
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Johansson
authors.forename: Mattias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Agnebrink
authors.forename: Ulf
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Dahlström
authors.forename: Anders
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Broström
mesh_terms: D006304:Health Status; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000451:nursing / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D017063:Outcome Assessment, Health Care; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011594:Psychometrics; D011788:Quality of Life; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012107:Research Design; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*