School of Nursing, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6.
Cardiol Res Pract. 2012;2012:616372. doi: 10.1155/2012/616372. Epub 2012 Aug 22.
The purpose of this study was to determine the combined effects of gender and levels of social support on 1-year functional health outcomes in older persons diagnosed with heart failure (HF). Persons ≥ 65 years of age with an acute HF exacerbation (164 females; 271 males) were enrolled and followed for a year. Participants completed baseline and 12-month questionnaires containing clinical and demographic descriptive information and validated self-report measures of: (1) physical functioning (Medical Outcome Study [MOS] SF12 and Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire [KCCQ]) and (2) social support (MOS- Social Support Survey). Women were more likely to be single, widowed or divorced, living alone and earning less annual income. At baseline, women reported significantly lower support and physical function scores. However, at 1 year there were no significant gender differences in the proportion of men or women who experienced clinically meaningful functional decline or death across the year of follow-up. In multivariable modeling, men with lower levels of social support were more likely to experience functional decline. This was not the case for women. Our findings suggest that gender-directed strategies to promote optimization of function for both men and women living with HF in their community are warranted.
本研究旨在确定性别和社会支持水平对诊断为心力衰竭（HF）的老年人 1 年后功能健康结果的综合影响。纳入了年龄≥65 岁且急性 HF 加重的患者（164 名女性；271 名男性），并随访 1 年。参与者完成了基线和 12 个月的问卷，其中包含临床和人口统计学描述信息以及经过验证的自我报告措施：（1）身体功能（医疗结果研究 [MOS] SF12 和堪萨斯城心肌病问卷 [KCCQ]）和（2）社会支持（MOS-社会支持调查）。女性更有可能单身、丧偶或离婚、独居和年收入较低。在基线时，女性报告的支持和身体功能评分明显较低。然而，在 1 年时，在整个随访年度内经历有临床意义的功能下降或死亡的男性或女性的比例没有显著的性别差异。在多变量模型中，社会支持水平较低的男性更有可能经历功能下降。对于女性则不是这样。我们的研究结果表明，有必要针对男性和女性制定性别导向的策略，以促进社区中 HF 患者的功能优化。
