Evaluation of the social support and its relationship with social-demografic variables in heart failure patients under clinical follow-up

Abstract

This descriptive study aimed to measure social support among heart failure patients under clinical follow-up and to check for existing relations between social support and demographic variables. A specific instrument was used to evaluate two types of social support, i.e. emotional and instrumental, in terms of perceived frequency and satisfaction. Answers range in a possible interval from 1 to 5 in which, the higher the score, the higher the frequency and satisfaction with each evaluated support type. Data were collected between February and October 2005. Study participants were 85 patients, 55 of whom were men; 55 participants were married, and average age was 57+14.4 years (interval from 24.7 to 85.6). We found an average score of 3.8+0.7 (interval from 2 to 5) for the emotional dimension and 3.9+0.7 (interval from 1.7 to 5) for the instrumental dimension. This indicates high levels of availability and satisfaction about the received support. We found a correlation between the emotional domain of social support and years of education, but did not find any evidence of relations between social support and age, gender and marital situation among the participants, which is inconsistent with findings from other studies.