Role of Self-Care in the Patient with Heart Failure

Optimal outcomes and quality of life for patients with heart failure depend on engagement in effective self-care activities. Self-care is a complex set of activities and most clinicians are not adequately prepared to assist their patients to engage in effective self-care. In this paper, we provide an overview of self-care that includes definitions, the importance of self-care to outcomes, the physiologic basis for better outcomes with good self-care, cultural perspectives of self-care, and recommendations for the improvement of self-care. Promotion of effective self-care by all clinicians could substantially reduce the economic and personal burden of repeated rehospitalizations among patients with heart failure.