Patients' self-care improvement with nurse education intervention in Spain assessed by the European Heart Failure Self-Care Behaviour Scale.
The European Heart Failure Self-care Behaviour Scale (EHFScBS) has been developed for assessing patients' self-care level. We used it to assess our patients' self-care progress after a medium-term period of nurse education intervention.


METHODS
We prospectively studied 151 patients (111 men and 40 women, mean age 65.4+/-11.9 years). All patients were evaluated twice with the EHFScBS: during the first visit to the Unit and after 1 year of nurse educational intervention.


RESULTS
Mean score obtained by our patients in the initial evaluation was 24.8+/-7.6. In the second evaluation patients showed a significant (p<0.001) improvement in self-care behaviour (mean score 19.9+/-5.7). Analyzing item by item of the scale, patients show improvement in all items except in four: "If I am short of breath, I take it easy", "I take a rest during the day", "I eat a low salt diet" and "I take my medication as prescribed".


CONCLUSIONS
Improvement in self-care behaviour, assessed with the EHFScBS, was achieved with nurse educational intervention in patients without previous heart failure education. However, in our population, this improvement was not obtained in one important aspect such is low salt diet compliance, although punctuation in this item was quite acceptable already initially.
Lupón
Josep
J
Unitat d'Insuficiència Cardíaca, Hospital Universitari Germans Trias i Pujol, Carretera del Canyet s/n., 08916 Badalona, Spain. jlupon.germanstrias@gencat.net
González
Beatriz
B
Mas
Dolors
D
Urrutia
Agustín
A
Arenas
Miquel
M
Domingo
Mar
M
Altimir
Salvador
S
Valle
Vicente
V
D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods; D015402:Nursing Education Research; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D010349:Patient Compliance / Q000523:psychology*; D010353:Patient Education as Topic / Q000458:organization & administration*; D015397:Program Evaluation; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012648:Self Care / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D013030:Spain; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires