Abstract:
Abstract
Introducton: Heart failure is a global pandemic. Assesing the effect of the disease on
quality of life is very important to know about patients’ interaction with illness and their
response to treatment, to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of various permutations of
treatment as well as the 'human effectiveness' of health care system restructuring.So far
studies in Ethiopia have focused only on mortality and morbidity aspect of Heart failure
with no evidence on health related quality of life.
Objective: The objective of this study was to assess health related quality of life and
associated factors among adult patients aged 18 and above diagnosed with heart failure
in Wolaita Zone governmental hospitals, South Ethiopia, 2018.
Method: An institution based cross-sectional study design was conducted in selected
governmental hospitals.Multistage simple random sampling technique was used and
samples were proportionally allocated to each hospital.A total of 388 adult patients with
heart failures were selected from both inpatient ward and outpatient department.A
disease specific Menesota Living with Heart failure questionnaire was used to measure
health realted quality of life. The data was entered into Epi-info version 7 and analysed
using Stata version 14. Simple linear regression analysis was done to identify factors
associated with health related quality of life independently at a P-value < 0.2. Multiple
Linear Regression analysis with P-value ? 0.05 was used to measure the degree of
association between health-related quality of life and independent variables.
Result: A total of 388 study participants were included in the study. The quality of life
score for the physical, emotional and total were 22.2, 7.7 and 46.37 respectively.Factors
such as gender, age, family size, occupation, and residency,recent admission with in
past 6 months,the New York Heart Association functional classification,department of
treatment,salt intake and health perception had significant association to health related
quality of life.
Conclusion and recommendation: Health related quality of life of people with heart
failuire is found to be low. Patients with more severe functional class, elders, and
females need more individualized education, care and psychosocial suppot to help them
manage in their daily lives.
Key words: Health related quality of life, heart failure, Wolaita zone, South Ethiopia
