[Living with limitations: people afflicted with heart failure - A qualitative study].

About two million people in Germany live with heart failure. However, health care provision is still inadequate. In order to develop patient-centred care it is necessary to focus on the everyday life and experiences of people with heart failure. Based on these insights the need for information and counselling can be identified and nursing interventions can be designed according to these needs. Within a literature analysis five international but no German studies. The focus lay on everyday experiences of people suffering from heart failure. The following research question was developed: How do people with heart failure experience their lives? Using the Grounded Theory approach, nine interviews and a self-report were analysed according to Corbin and Strauss' coding paradigm. The central phenomenon found is the experience of limitations. To deal with these limitations in everyday life, patients develop two different strategies: ignorance or acceptance. Either they ignore the limitations in order to maintain their former life or they create a new normality by adopting the illness and its symptoms. The different strategies have special impacts on the person's roles, their emotions their everyday lives, and their families. The results of this study underline existing theories of chronic illness as well as results of current studies. It provides an insight into the perspective of people suffering from heart failure in Germany. But many questions are still unanswered so that further research needs to be done.