ANALYSIS OF THE FACTORS AFFECTING ILLNESS PERCEPTION IN PATIENTS WITH HEART FAILURE

Abstract

Objective: To determine the perception of heart failure patients of their illness andfactors affecting their illness perception.

Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted at Cardiology Clinic, ofUniversity Hospital, Turkey from November 2015 and January 2016.Adultpatients over 18 years of age, who were diagnosed with HF at least 18 monthsago, and had no speech disorder and psychiatric disorder were included in thestudy. Personal Information Form and Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ)were used for data collection. In the analysis of the data, percentiles, t-test,Mann-Whitney U-test and KruskalWallis test was used.

Results: Total of 200 patients were included in the study. Of the illness perceptionscale's sub-scales, the mean score taken in the disease symptoms was7.36±2.72, and for the views about the illness scale, the mean scores were asfollows: personal control 20.97±4.85, timeline (acute/chronic) 21.72±6.15,emotional representations 24.67±6.21, illness coherence 17.46±3.95,consequences 20.84±4.94, treatment control 19.20±3.97, timeline (cyclical)13.77±2.74. Mean scores of psychological attributions (14.30±4.74), riskfactors (17.23±4.37), immunity (8.42±2.55) accident and chance (4.49±1.76) represented the cause of illness sub scale.

Conclusion: It was determined that the introductory features of the patients andthe introductory features of the disease affected the disease perception indifferent sub-dimensions