Impact of physical limitation in life quality health related of heart failure patients

Abstract

The heart failure (HF) it's a self-limiting and severe condition, of varied etiology, with negative repercussions to the political-economic framework, and to health related life quality (HRLQ) of patients with HF, due to its standard symptoms and effects. Its's believed that due to the reduced cardiorespiratory competence coming for the HF, certain physical limitation levels would be expressed, impairing directly the HRLQ. To evaluate the physical limitation impact in the HRLQ of Heart Failure patients. Cross-sectional study, quantitative, descriptive and analytical character, conducted with patients treated at a Cardiology outpatient clinic from a university hospital. To evaluate the patients was used: characterization questionnaire Clinic and Socioeconomic, Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ) and the Veterans Specific Activity Questionnaire (VSAQ). The data was managed in Microsoft Office Excel® 2010 program, double independent entry. Subsequently imported into Statistical Package for Social Science program (SPSS), version 21.0, which were conducted exploratory analyzes of data from the calculation of simple absolute and percentage frequencies for categorical variables and measures of centrality and dispersion for quantitative variables, as well as parametric testing Pearson correlation, since the normal distribution of variables. In the research were included 108 patients, with a predominance of female participants (50.90%), mean age of 66.55±11.41 years. Regarding the NYHA functional classification at level II (50%) and NYHA III (39.80%) were the most prevalent. The etiologies of HF was the most prevalent Chagas' Heart (50.90%). The MLHFQ showed negative impact of the IC under the HRLQ, which presented a total score of MLHFQ of 51.87±15.74 points. At the physical limitation the VSAQ resulted in an average of 3, 37±1, 41 with bigger impairment to the METS3 (45, 4%). The MLHFQ and VSAQ correlation presented itself negative, moderate to strong and significant (p<0, 01) it results for each domain being: physical (-0,523); emotional (-0.436); nonspecific (-0,411), and MLHFQ's total score (-0,562). It has been confirmed that the greater the degree of heart damage due to HF presents, the lower will be the patient's MET results confirming a physical limitation as a HRLQ's impairing predictor.