Exploring the beliefs of heart failure patients towards their heart failure medicines and self care activities

Aim To identify Heart Failure patients' beliefs towards their medications and how these beliefs relate to adherence. Method Patients attending a multi-disciplinary, community based heart failure clinic on the Gold Coast, Australia were interviewed using a questionnaire composed of fours parts: repertory grid technique; Beliefs About Medicines Questionnaire (BMQ); Medicines Adherence Reporting Scale (MARS); demographic details. Patients were divided into those categorised as adherent (MARS score a parts per thousand yen 23) and those categorised as non-adherent (MARS score < 23). Necessity beliefs scores from BMQ and the frequency of statements generated from the repertory grid portion of the questionnaire were compared between these two groups. Results Forty-three patients were interviewed with a mean age (+/- SD) of 64 (+/- 17) years and thirty-six (83.7 %) were male. Thirty-seven (86.0 %) patients were categorised as adherent; the remaining six (14.0 %) as non-adherent. The 43 patients generated a total of 262 statements about their medicines. The three most common themes identified were Related to fluid (36.6 %), Helps the heart (31.7 %) and Related to weight (13.7 %). There was a significantly higher median necessity score in the adherent group compared to the non adherent group (22.0 vs. 19.5, p = 0.0272). Patients with a strong necessity score also had significantly higher self reported adherence compared to patients with a strong concerns score (21.5 vs. 18.0, p = 0.006). Conclusion This study suggests that patients with heart failure possessing a strong belief in the necessity of their treatment regimen are more likely to demonstrate better adherence.