No abstract

Background: Self-care is believed to improve outcomes in heart failure (HF) Heart failure (HF) is associated with poor outcomes and self-care is promoted as a way to improve outcomes in this patient population.1 Education intended to promote self-care has become the cornerstone of HF disease management efforts. However, research testing the effectiveness of these interventions is hampered by difficulties in measuring self-care.Self-care is defined as a naturalistic decision making process involving the choice of behaviors that maintain physiologic stability (self-care maintenance) and the response to symptoms when they occur (self-care management). Riegel and colleagues published a clinical tool, the Self-Management of HF scale, 2 based on this definition. That tool was lengthy and designed to be used by clinicians to assess self-management decision making. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the reliability (consistency of measurement) and validity (extent to which the instrument measures what it is intended to measure) of a revised version of that instrument, the Self-Care of Heart Failure Index (SCHFI), a self-report measure comprising 15 items divided into 3 subscales. The SCHFI measures self-care maintenance, self-care management, and self-care self-confidence in a short, focused manner that minimizes subject burden.