HEALTH RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG ADULT PATIENTS WITH HEART FAILURE IN WOLAITA ZONE GOVERNMENTAL HOSPITALS, SOUTH ETHIOPIA

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