Objective: Identifying the level of anxiety, stress and depression symptoms in family members of patients with heart failure; identifying the relationship between these feelings with sociodemographic and clinical variables. Method: A cross-sectional study carried out with 100 family members. Depression, anxiety, and stress were evaluated by the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories and the Perceived Stress Scale -10. The relationship between feelings and variables was performed through the t-test, Mann-Whitney or Kruskal-Wallis. Results: Mean depression was 8.24, anxiety was 77.95, and stress was 17.43. The correlation coefficient between depression and anxiety and depression and stress was 0.53, and it was 0.66 between anxiety and stress. Females (p=0.002, p=0.031), smoking (p=0.05, p=0.011) and sedentary lifestyle (p=0.023, p=0.001) were related to anxiety and stress, respectively. Family income lower than five minimum wages (p=0.012) was related to depression, and regular/poor self-perceived health status related to the three feelings. Conclusion: Family members did not present high levels of these feelings. The scales were directly correlated with each one another and some variables were related to stress, anxiety and depression. DESCRIPTORS Heart Failure; Family; Anxiety; Stress, Phychological; Depression; Cardiovascular Nursing.Anxiety, stress and depression in family members of patients with heart failure* Ansiedade, estresse e depressão de familiares de pacientes com insuficiência cardíaca Ansiedad, estrés y depresión de familiares de pacientes con insuficiencia cardiaca
INTRODUCTIONHeart failure (HF) is the final pathway for various heart diseases representing a major public health problem. According to data from DataSUS, circulatory system diseases were the third leading cause of hospital admission in 2015 (1) . HF is a chronic disease responsible for the greatest number of hospitalizations within the group of circulatory system diseases (1) . An individual affected by a chronic disease such as HF experiences changes in their daily life which are caused by the disease itself (2) , such as changes related to the use of medicines (start taking, changing or increasing number of medications), frequent consultations and recurrent hospitalizations.Such changes to a patient's lifestyle directly influence their family members' living habits, who represent necessary support to the patient for better coping with the disease. It is known that caregivers directly and indirectly contribute to monitoring, maintenance and management of patient self-care (3) . Therefore, understanding psychosocial factors (depression, anxiety and stress) that may be present in family members and understanding the context in which the patient and family are inserted becomes important.It is known that family members may experience negative experiences/situations arising from care which encompass physical and psychological aspects. A study showed that family member caregivers present musculoskeletal and sleep disorders, fatigu...
