What do patients know about their heart failure?

Positive health outcomes for heart failure (HF) patients depend on patient participation in the selection and use of appropriately focused heart failure self-care. To produce a system of heart failure self-care, patients must have an adequately developed fund of highly specialized antecedent knowledge. This research found that knowledge needed to produce heart failure self-care was deficient in a diverse sample of heart failure patients. Low levels of knowledge were especially evident in the areas of heart failure medications, weight monitoring, and being able to recognize the correct definition of heart failure. Although being older and being more highly educated were associated with higher levels of HF knowledge, HF knowledge scores were uniformly low across gender and racial groups. If nurses are going to be instrumental in helping heart failure patients achieve positive health outcomes, creative strategies to provide information and increase the knowledge necessary to produce HF self-care need to be developed and tested. Copyright 2002, Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.