Patients' self-care improvement with nurse education intervention in Spain assessed by the European heart failure self-care behaviour scale

The European Heart Failure Self-care Behaviour Scale (EHFScBS) has been developed for assessing patients' self-care level. We used it to assess our patients' self-care progress after a medium-term period of nurse education intervention. Patients and method: We prospectively studied 151 patients (111 men and 40 women, mean age 65.4 ± 11.9 years). All patients were evaluated twice with the EHFScBS: during the first visit to the Unit and after 1 year of nurse educational intervention. Results: Mean score obtained by our patients in the initial evaluation was 24.8 ± 7.6. In the second evaluation patients showed a significant (p < 0.001) improvement in self-care behaviour (mean score 19.9 ± 5.7). Analyzing item by item of the scale, patients show improvement in all items except in four: "If I am short of breath, I take it easy", "I take a rest during the day", "I eat a low salt diet" and "I take my medication as prescribed". Conclusions: Improvement in self-care behaviour, assessed with the EHFScBS, was achieved with nurse educational intervention in patients without previous heart failure education. However, in our population, this improvement was not obtained in one important aspect such is low salt diet compliance, although punctuation in this item was quite acceptable already initially.