Social support and self-care behaviors in individuals with heart failure: an integrative review

Objectives: The purpose of this review is to examine and synthesize recent literature regarding the relationship between social support and self-care behaviors in individuals with heart failure (HF).

Background: Self-care is an important factor in maintaining health and well-being for individuals with heart failure. Self-care behaviors are an integral component of self-care, and may be impacted by the disease process of heart failure. However, social support may positively influence an individual's self-care behaviors by assisting with activities associated with symptom management and evaluation, as well as activities associated with maintaining heart failure-related treatment regimens. This review will synthesize the current knowledge related to the influence of social support on heart failure self-care behaviors.

Design and data sources: Using an integrative review method, a review of current empirical literature was conducted utilizing CINAHL, PsycARTICLES, and PubMed computerized databases for a period of January 2000 to December 2012. Thirteen studies were identified that met the inclusion criteria for review and investigated aspects of social support and heart failure self-care behaviors.

Results: Social support appears to have a positive relationship on heart failure self-care behaviors, with an individual's family playing an important role in assisting individuals to maintain positive self-care behaviors. Social support appears to influence both heart failure self-care maintenance and management related behaviors by assisting with maintaining treatment regimens and by participating in the decision-making process related to the management of symptoms, as well as seeking treatment for symptoms of heart failure.

Conclusions: All four types of social support (i.e., emotional support, instrumental/tangible support, informational support, and appraisal support) are involved in the interactive process between an individual's social network (i.e., family and peers) and the individual with heart failure to maintain self-care behaviors that enhance health and well-being. However, more research is needed, specifically longitudinal and experimental designs, to determine the effectiveness of social support on self-care behaviors in individuals with heart failure, since this review revealed mostly cross-sectional, correlational studies which limits the ability to infer causality.