Evaluation of the effectiveness of heart failure symptoms monitoring diary in outpatient settings

The main risk factors for the development of heart failure, in addition to the main disease, are old age, male sex, comorbidity, insufficient self-care and self-control at home. The aim of the study is to evaluate the impact of the "Heart Failure Symptoms Monitoring Diary" on self-care behavior in patients with diagnosed hypertensive heart disease with heart failure in an outpatient setting. We examined 110 patients with signs of heart failure. All respondents were divided equally into control and experimental groups, aged 60-96 years. The self-care index was determined using the Self-Care of Heart Failure Index scale proposed by Dr. Barbara Riegel, 2019 version 7.2. Referring to the cut-off score of less than 70 in this study control group participants exhibited inadequate self-care (58.77±4.23 points), with a tendency to repeated (early) hospitalization (less than 75 points). In the control group, the results of the study showed a low level of behavior in terms of the average total number of points (41.90±4.26) in all three areas of self-care had 87.2% of patients, 41.69±4.88; 43.42±3.60; 40.63±4.31 for self-care support, symptom perception and self-care management, respectively. Patients in the experimental group reported improvements in all domains of self-care from baseline after 30 days of keeping a Heart Failure Symptom Monitoring Diary and following all recommendations. The main group demonstrated adequate self-care (70.05±3.49 points) in all three areas of self-care. Medium and high level of behavior was demonstrated by 82.7% of patients with a total average score of 91.08±4.93 in all areas of self-care and in each area (54.54% of patients – in the area of self-care support scored 88.53±5.09 points; 52.62% of patients – in the area of symptom perception – 90.72±5.37 points; 50.91% of patients – in the area of self-care management – 94.00±4.33 points), which is a good prognostic indicator. In order to prolong the quality of life of patients with heart failure, limit the frequency of repeated visits to the polyclinic cardiologist's office, it is necessary to implement "Monitoring diaries of symptoms of heart failure" to assess the level of self-care behavior in outpatient settings.