Gender differences in self-care maintenance and its associations among patients with chronic heart failure.
Jiaojiao Mei, Yan Tian, Xiaohui Chai and 1 others
PMID 31406870WHAT IT FOUND
Chinese heart failure patients scored below the adequate cutoff for self-care maintenance, with 51.4 in men and 55.6 in women on a 0 to 100 scale.
Confidence was associated with maintenance in men; knowledge, management and confidence were associated in women.
Key findings
01Mean self-care maintenance scores were 51.4 in men and 55.6 in women on a standardized 0 to 100 scale, where 70 or more was considered adequate, and women scored higher than men.
02In adjusted models, self-care confidence was positively associated with self-care maintenance in men (standardized beta 0.515), and self-care management (0.294) and self-care confidence (0.211) were positively associated in women.
03Social support was associated with self-care maintenance through self-care confidence in men, and heart failure knowledge was associated with self-care maintenance through self-care management and partly through self-care confidence in women.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study measured patients at one time point, so it cannot show that any factor causes better self-care maintenance. Patients came from cardiovascular wards at one teaching hospital in Shandong, China, so the results may not apply to other settings or more diverse patients. Self-care, knowledge, support and illness perception were all self-reported, which can introduce bias. Patients with cognitive impairment or serious life-threatening disease were excluded, so the findings may not apply to all heart failure patients. Fifteen of 225 recruited patients were excluded for missing questions, leaving 210 analysed. The paper did not test whether targeting confidence, knowledge or support improves self-care maintenance.
Declared interests
Funded by Key Research and Development Program of Shandong province (grant number 2016GSF201046). Authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that teaching knowledge or building confidence will improve self-care maintenance. The study measured associations at one time point and did not test an intervention.