Self-reported health-related quality of life and sleep disturbances in Taiwanese people with heart failure.

BACKGROUND AND RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) has been viewed as the most important clinical outcome of heart failure (HF) management. However, information about the predictors of HRQOL in Taiwanese people with HF is limited, especially for the effects of sleep disturbances on HF.

PURPOSE: The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of HRQOL in Taiwanese people with HF, especially focusing on the extent to which sleep variables are related to HRQOL.

METHODS: A cross-sectional, descriptive correlational design was used. A nonprobability sample of 125 participants was recruited from the outpatient departments of 2 hospitals located in southern Taiwan. Participants were face-to-face individually interviewed to complete the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire, Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, and Charlson Comorbidity Index. Data for concomitant health problems and HF characteristics were collected from the medical records.

RESULTS: The mean Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire overall summary score for HRQOL in this sample was 70.50 (SD, 19.63). Health-related quality of life physical symptom had the highest score, and the psychological satisfaction domain had the lowest. Six predictors of the HRQOL were identified by using a 3-step hierarchical multiple regression analysis with forward method. The predictors were education (R² = 0.09), New York Heart Association functional class (R² = 0.398), Charlson Comorbidity Index number (R² = 2.6), subjective sleep quality (R² = 0.037), sleep disturbances (R² = 0.015), and sleep latency (R² = 0.018), and together they accounted for a total of 58.5% of the variance in HRQOL.

CONCLUSIONS: Nurses should use a holistic perspective to help patients understand and manage the impact of HF on their daily lives. Effective interventions for improving HRQOL should be designed based on patients' needs and lifestyles. The study findings could serve as a baseline for further longitudinal studies to explore the long-term effects of correlates and causal relationships among the variables in this Taiwanese population with HF.