Living with heart failure can be challenging. Patients often experience a poor quality of life, which means they may not enjoy life as much as they used to.
But how does this play out in China, a country with its own unique culture and healthcare system?
And are there differences between men and women when it comes to quality of life with heart failure? Let’s find out.
The Research: A Deep Dive into Chinese Heart Patients’ Lives
A team of researchers published a study in the scientific journal Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications to shed light on this topic.
They wanted to know more about the quality of life for Chinese patients living with heart failure.
The researchers surveyed over 4,000 heart failure patients in China. They used a special survey called the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire.
This questionnaire asks patients about their physical and emotional health to understand how heart failure affects their daily lives.
The patients were tracked for one year as part of a larger study called the Heart Failure Registry of Patient Outcomes.
Heart Failure and Quality of Life: A Closer Look
The researchers found that the average score on the questionnaire was about 43 out of 100.
When they broke down the scores into physical and emotional health, they found that the average score was about 22 for physical health and about 9 for emotional health.
Remember, the higher the score, the worse the quality of life.
Gender Differences: Women Vs Men
Next, the researchers wanted to know if there were any differences between men and women when it comes to quality of life with heart failure.
They found that women had higher scores than men, meaning that women tended to have a poorer quality of life. Women scored higher both in terms of physical health and emotional health.
They also found that the severity of the heart failure symptoms predicted the score on the questionnaire. This means that patients with more severe symptoms had a worse quality of life.
Sex and Quality of Life: Not Always a Clear Connection
However, when the researchers adjusted their data for other factors that could affect the results, they found that sex was not independently associated with the scores.
This means that being a woman did not necessarily lead to a worse quality of life when other factors were taken into account.
The Long-term Outcomes: Survival and Hospitalization
Over the course of one year, about one in five patients in the study died. About a quarter of the patients had to be hospitalized. When combining these two outcomes, about 40% of patients had either died or been hospitalized.
The researchers found that for every 10-point increase in the questionnaire score, the risk of dying within the year increased. This was true for both men and women.
They also found that a higher score was linked to a higher risk of the combined outcome of death or hospitalization. However, they did not find a significant link between quality of life and hospitalization for women.
The Bottom Line: Quality of Life Matters
The study showed that women generally reported a poorer quality of life than men, but there were no significant differences in terms of the physical and emotional challenges.
Importantly, the quality of life was linked to the risk of death and hospitalization for patients with heart failure.
This study underlines the importance of considering the quality of life in heart failure patients, alongside medical treatments and interventions.
After all, the goal of healthcare is not just to prolong life, but to improve the quality of that life. Understanding the patient’s perspective is an important step in achieving this goal.
If you care about heart health, please read studies that yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease, and coconut sugar could help reduce artery stiffness.
For more information about health, please see recent studies about antioxidants that could help reduce dementia risk, and epilepsy drug may help treat Alzheimer’s disease.
The study was published in Cardiovascular Innovations and Applications.
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