QUALITATIVE RESEARCH ARTICLE

Living with Chronic Heart Failure: A Review of Qualitative Studies of Older People

Living with Chronic Heart Failure: A Review of Qualitative Studies of Older People

Doris Yu et al. (2007) in their article “Living with Chronic Heart Failure: A Review of Qualitative Studies of Older People” explained that chronic heart failure is a worldwide epidemic mostly affecting elderly people (age 40+). Understanding how older people live with this disease is important to help promote their adjustment to the distressing illness experience (Doris Yu et al., 2007). It has long been assumed that the emotional distress (depression/anxiety/irritability) commonly observed in coronary heart disease (CHD) patients is a “natural” reaction to the diagnosis. This is an erroneous, harmful, and expensive assumption. It is now clear that, for large numbers of patients, emotional distress predates and predicts the onset of CHD. For those who do not have premorbid emotional distress, reactive depression/anxiety (and anger) will still adversely affect the progression of atherosclerosis, ischemic episodes, myocardial infarction (MI)/death, noncompliance, symptoms, and utilisation.

Doris Yu et al. (2007) further explained that contributing factors for chronic heart disease are those situations, environments, or lifestyle choices that increase the likelihood of developing a chronic disease (Doris Yu et al., 2007). Aging is one of the leading contributing factors; other factors are environmental exposure to toxins, secular trends, genetics, stress, diet, race, socioeconomic status, access to health care, and level of education. Major depression occurs in 18% to 20% of CHD patients (a fivefold increase over general population levels), and “minor” depression (dysthymia or adjustment disorder with depressed mood) occurs in another 10% to 15% (also a fivefold increase over general population levels). The distinction between major (per DSM-IV criteria) and minor depression (Beck scores of 10 or greater) has not been found to be useful in terms of ...