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- Published on: 7 June 2018
- Published on: 7 June 2018Patient Adherence to Self Care Tasks for Chronic Heart Failure
The statement that our cited study [40] demonstrated an issue of declined patient adherence over time is not entirely accurate. By contrast, our HeartCycle study demonstrated excellent adherence to performing daily tasks of weighing and measuring blood pressure, 90% of the patients were still adherent to these tasks at 6 months and adherence remained stable over time. We recognise however patients were less compliant with completing daily symptom questionnaires long term. There is a behavioural dichotomy therefore between carrying out a daily monitoring task (such as stepping on a weighing scale) and reporting symptoms via questionnaire. Arguably patients perceived the importance of daily weighing, and blood pressure monitoring to be greater than the daily reporting of symptoms such as breathlessness, that they may or may not be experiencing. We look forward to learning of the outcomes of the ITEC-CHF trial.
[40]. Stut W, Deighan C, Cleland JG, et al. Patient adherence to self-care behaviour in the HeartCycle study. Patient Prefer Adherence 2015;9: 1195-206.
Conflict of Interest:
None declared.