Longitudinal Relationships Between Heart Failure Self-care and All-Cause Hospital Readmissions

Background: Many patients with heart failure (HF) are repeatedly hospitalized. Heart failure self-care may reduce readmission rates. Hospitalizations may also affect self-care.

Objective: The purpose of this secondary analysis was to test the hypotheses that better HF self-care is associated with a lower rate of all-cause readmissions and that readmissions motivate patients to improve their self-care.

Methods: This was a prospective cohort study of patients with HF (N = 400) who were enrolled during a stay at an urban teaching hospital between 2014 and 2016. The Self-Care of Heart Failure Index v6.2 was administered during the hospital stay, along with other questionnaires, and repeated at 6-month intervals after discharge. All-cause readmissions and deaths were ascertained for 24 months.

Results: A total of 333 (83.3%) were readmitted at least once, and 117 (29.3%) of the patients died during the follow-up period. A total of 1581 readmissions were ascertained. Higher Self-Care of Heart Failure Index Maintenance scores predicted more rather than fewer readmissions (adjusted hazard ratio, 1.09; 95% confidence interval, 1.01-1.17; P < .01). Conversely, more readmissions predicted higher Maintenance scores (b = 0.29; 95% confidence interval, 0.02-0.56; P < .05).

Conclusions: These findings do not support the hypothesis that HF self-care maintenance or management helps to reduce the rate of all-cause readmissions, but they do suggest that the experience of multiple readmissions may help to motivate improvements in HF self-care.