Comparative analysis of the quality of life of heart failure patients in South Western Nigeria

Background: Heart failure (HF) is a common, chronic clinical syndrome with appreciable impact on both prognosis and lifestyle of patients. Two main aims of management include preventing disease progression and improving quality of life (QoL). Not much work has been done in this area in Sub-Saharan Africa and most of the available disease specific instruments were developed using the Caucasian population. Aim: We therefore evaluated the QoL of stable HF patients attending the cardiology clinic of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital using a disease specific instrument, Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) and a generic one, the WHOQOL- BREF. Method: Consenting, stable HF patient were recruited from the cardiology clinic of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. Relevant clinical data and echocardiographic parameters were retrieved from their clinical notes and the subjects filled out the questionnaires, the KCCQ and the WHOQOL-BREF. The QoL and four main domains in the WHOQOL- BREF were compared with scores on the KCCQ for relationships. Result: Data set of 190 patients was analysed. There were 91 (47.9%) males and 99 (52.1%) females with a mean age 51.90 ± 13.21 yrs. Only 52 (27.4%) had college education and 143 (75.2%) had very poor personal resources. About 104 (54.7%) were paying their medical bills themselves. The mean QoL score using the KCCQ score was 59.61 ± 23.80. With The KCCQ, 6.9% felt their QoL was poor and 20% felt it was fair while 11.6% and 20.5% felt their QoL was poor and fair respectively with the WHOQOL-BREF. There was positive correlation, p