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Heart failure home management challenges and reasons for readmission: a qualitative study to understand the patient’s perspective
Sevilla-Cazes, Jonathan Ahmad, Faraz S. Bowles, Kathryn H. Jaskowiak, Anne Gallagher, Tom Goldberg, Lee R. Kangovi, Shreya Alexander, Madeline Riegel, Barbara Barg, Frances K.
Sevilla-Cazes, Jonathan
Ahmad, Faraz S.
Bowles, Kathryn H.
Jaskowiak, Anne
Gallagher, Tom
Goldberg, Lee R.
Kangovi, Shreya
Alexander, Madeline
Riegel, Barbara
Barg, Frances K.
Abstract
Background
Heart failure patients have high 30-day hospital readmission rates. Interventions designed to prevent readmissions have had mixed success. Understanding heart failure home management through the patient’s experience may reframe the readmission “problem” and, ultimately, inform alternative strategies.
Objective
To understand patient and caregiver challenges to heart failure home management and perceived reasons for readmission.
Design
Observational qualitative study.
Participants
Heart failure patients were recruited from two hospitals and included those who were hospitalized for heart failure at least twice within 30 days and those who had been recently discharged after their first heart failure admission.
Approach
Open-ended, semi-structured interviews. Conclusions vetted using focus groups.
Key Results
Semi-structured interviews with 31 patients revealed a combination of physical and socio-emotional influences on patients’ home heart failure management. Major themes identified were home management as a struggle between adherence and adaptation, and hospital readmission as a rational choice in response to distressing symptoms. Patients identified uncertainty regarding recommendations, caused by unclear instructions and temporal incongruence between behavior and symptom onset. This uncertainty impaired their competence in making routine management decisions, resulting in a cycle of limit testing and decreasing adherence. Patients reported experiencing hopelessness and frustration in response to perceiving a deteriorating functional status. This led some to a cycle of despair characterized by worsening adherence and negative emotions. As these cycles progressed and distressing symptoms worsened, patients viewed the hospital as the safest place for recovery and not a “negative” outcome.
Conclusion
Cycles of limit testing and despair represent important patient-centered struggles in managing heart failure. The resulting distress and fear make readmission a rational choice for patients rather than a negative outcome. Interventions (e.g., palliative care) that focus on methods to address these patient-centered factors should be further studied rather than methods to reduce hospital readmissions.
Keywords
heart failure, qualitative research, care management, care transitions, patient-centered outcomes research
Date
2018
Type
Journal article
Journal
Journal of General Internal Medicine
Book
Volume
33
Issue
10
Page Range
1700-1707
Article Number
ACU Department
Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research
Faculty of Health Sciences
Faculty of Health Sciences
Collections
Relation URI
Source URL
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
File Access
Controlled