The patients’ experience of daily life after heart failure : A literature review

Background: As a global health problem, heart failure is prejudicial to heart function. Elderly have increased risk of heart failure as their body functions decline with age. Heart failure is not only harmful to the patients’ physical health, but also causes emotional and social changes, which has a impact on their relatives. With the development of global aging, more attention has been paid to the elderly experience of heart failure. At the same time, the demand for specialized care for heart failure has expanded.Aim: To describe the elderly patients’ (65+) experiences of daily life with heart failure.Methods: A descriptive review was conducted. Through keywords searching on PubMed and CINAHL, 12 articles were selected and analyzed under the guidance of data analysis method.Results: Based on stress and coping theory, three themes related to the experience of HF patients were identified: (1) stress manifestations (2) emotional manifestations (3) coping measures. It revealed the stress manifestation and different coping styles of HF patients after the disease.Conclusions: Based on the experience of HF patients in different countries and stress coping theory, this study reviewed the stress performance, emotional performance and stress coping measures of HF patients. Understanding the experience of HF patients is important to improve their symptoms and quality of life. Finally, according to the stress performance of HF patients, it is beneficial for medical personnel to develop targeted nursing programs to help patients and take appropriate measures to improve the quality of life of HF patients.Keywords: Experience; Heart failure; Patient