| dc.description.abstract | Title: Motivating patients with heart failure to be physically active: a qualitative study
Background: Heart failure (HF) is a chronic disease with high mortality and morbidity rates and a low health-related quality of life. Although physical activity (PA) has been shown to be effective in increasing patients quality of life, adherence is still less than 50% for HF patients. Nurses have an essential role in supporting HF patient to do PA, however, no studies describing how nurses motivate HF patients were found.
Aim: This study aimed to describe how nurses take PA motivations and barriers into account when counselling HF patients.
Methods: A qualitative study was conducted in Sweden during the period of Jan-March 2016. Data was collected through fifteen semi-structured interviews and these were analysed using the qualitative content analysis method.
Results: Results of this study showed that nurses use different interventions to motivate HF patients to do PA. The nurses’ interventions are based on what barriers prevent patients from doing PA, motivations of the patients, their knowledge of PA and the needs of a patient to be motivated. Nurses also use several supportive resources which are helpful in motivating HF patients. Factors that include nurses lack of knowledge of PA and a lack of competences are negatively influence patient motivation.
Conclusion: Nurses use many different interventions to motivate HF patient to do PA, however, adherence can still be improved. Nurses cite a lack of knowledge and competence as barriers to motivating their patients. Additional training for nurses might provide an opportunity to improve PA in HF patient.
Recommendations: Based on the findings of this study, additional training for nurses is recommended. Training should be focused on 1) improvement of knowledge about PA and 2) training in patient motivation.
Keywords: Nurses, heart failure, physical activity, patient motivation | |
