Development of a Self-care Evaluation Scale for Older Adults with Chronic Heart Failure

Abstract

  The purpose of this study was to develop a self-care evaluation scale for older adults with chronic heart failure and to examine its reliability and validity. A questionnaire survey about the scale, which was created by the authors, was distributed to certified nurses in chronic heart failure nursing; subsequently, a pretest for the patients was conducted. Next, a questionnaire that included the scale was distributed to 340 older adults with chronic heart failure. The reliability and validity of the scale were verified. According to the analysis, this scale was constructed based on 4 factors with 30 items; the factors considered for constructing the scale were “necessary knowledge and practice,” “continual habits of management,” “recognition and correspondence pertaining to any changes in physical symptoms,” and “acquisition of support.” Cronbach’s α for the overall scale was 0.84; the corresponding values for the subscales ranged from 0.55 to 0.80. As expected, there was a significant correlation between this scale and SCAQ as well as Self-care confidence. These results suggest that the self-care evaluation scale for older adults with chronic heart failure has a fairly good reliability and validity. Furthermore, the possibility of it being used for self-care support was indicated.