Measurement of health-related quality of life in chronic heart failure, from a nursing perspective-a review of the literature.
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.
Johansson
Peter
P
Department of Cardiology, Linköping University Hospital, Linköping S-58185, Sweden. peterjohansson@mbox309.swipnet.se
Agnebrink
Mattias
M
Dahlström
Ulf
U
Broström
Anders
A
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*