Social support predicts self-care confidence in patients with heart failure.
Hayley C Fivecoat, Steven L Sayers, Barbara Riegel
PMID 29533083WHAT IT FOUND
Heart failure patients who reported more emotional or instrumental support had higher self-care confidence.
Patients with less initial instrumental support showed greater confidence gains over six months.
Key findings
01Instrumental support and emotional support were independently associated with higher self-care confidence on average.
02Emotional support was associated with higher self-care management scores, and assistance with self-care tasks was associated with higher self-care maintenance scores.
03Patients with lower initial instrumental support showed greater improvement in self-care confidence across time than patients with higher initial instrumental support.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This was an observational secondary analysis, not an intervention study, so it cannot show that social support causes better self-care. The measures were taken from a study designed to examine cognitive impairment and sleep dysfunction, not specifically to test social support and self-care. Only patients reported social support and self-care; no data were collected from caregivers or other supportive figures. Key variables were self-report, so they may be affected by memory and social desire to answer well. Missing data varied by time point: 10 participants were missing at baseline, 44 at three months, and 38 at six months. The sample was predominantly men, white, married, at least high school educated, unemployed, and financially comfortable.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that giving patients more instrumental support will raise self-care confidence. This was a correlational study, and patients with less initial instrumental support showed greater improvement in confidence over six months.