Identifying Targets to Improve Heart Failure Outcomes for Patients Receiving Home Healthcare Services: The Relationship of Functional Status and Pain.
Youjeong Kang, Xiaoming Sheng, Josef Stehlik and 1 others
PMID 31895894WHAT IT FOUND
In home healthcare patients with heart failure, self-care and home tasks improved by discharge.
Patients whose pain interfered daily, but not consistently, improved least in self-care tasks.
Key findings
01Overall daily activity and home task scores improved from admission to discharge.
02No daily activity-interfering pain was reported by 29.9% of patients at admission and 55.6% at discharge, and the number of patients with activity-interfering pain decreased by 25.7%.
03Patients with no activity-interfering pain at discharge showed the greatest improvement in daily activities, while patients with daily but not consistent pain interference showed the least.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The data came from one home healthcare agency, so they may not apply to other settings. The records were collected for Medicare assessment, not for research, and did not include measures of heart failure severity, such as New York Heart Association class or left ventricular ejection fraction, laboratory results, or the amount of home visits or physical therapy. The study did not test whether treating pain improved function. Only patients with completed assessments were included, so selection bias could affect the results.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that treating pain caused better function. The study was observational, did not test a pain intervention, and did not measure other possible reasons for improvement.