Heart failure and health related quality of life.
Quality of life is a major goal in the context of preventive and therapeutic cardiology. It is important, both as an outcome measure in clinical trials of congestive heart failure (CHF) and as a consideration in individual physicians' therapeutic decisions. In this article, quality of life concepts are reviewed, methods of measurement are explored and clinically significant changes on prognosis are discussed. There is a need for more research which is based on carefully selected measures of quality of life chosen as being of particular importance to patients and to the hypotheses being tested.
Coelho
Rui
R
Department of Psychiatry, Hospital de S. João, Porto Medical School, Porto, Portugal. rmnscoelho@mail.telepac.pt
Ramos
Sónia
S
Prata
Joana
J
Bettencourt
Paulo
P
Ferreira
António
A
Cerqueira-Gomes
Mário
M