Heart failure patients who are not married have a 58 percent higher risk of dying.

Heart failure patients who are not married have a 58 percent higher risk of dying.

Patients who are not married were found to have greater rates of cardiovascular and all-cause deaths.

In a study presented at Heart Failure 2022, the scientific meeting of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), unmarried heart failure patients were shown to be less self-assured in their ability to manage their condition and to feel more socially confined. These distinctions might have made unmarried patients less likely to survive over the long term.

According to research author Dr. Fabian Kerwagen of the Comprehensive Heart Failure Center at the University Hospital Würzburg in Germany, "Social support helps people manage long-term problems." "Spouses may support the development of healthy habits, offer encouragement, and help with medication adherence, all of which may shorten life expectancy. In this study, single patients engaged in less social interactions and lacked the confidence to treat their heart failure than married individuals. We are examining if these elements might potentially help to explain the connection to survival.

According to earlier studies, being single indicates a worse prognosis for both the general population and those with coronary artery disease. The prognostic value of marital status in patients with chronic heart failure was examined in the post-hoc analysis of the Extended Interdisciplinary Network Heart Failure (E-INH) study.

1,022 patients who were hospitalised for decompensated heart failure between 2004 and 2007 made up the E-INH study's sample. Out of 1,008 patients who disclosed their marital status, 633 (63%) were married and 375 (37%) were single, including 195 widows, 96 people who had never wed, and 84 people who were either separated from their spouses or divorced.

At the outset, the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire, a survey created especially for people with heart failure, was used to assess quality of life, social limits, and self-efficacy. The term "social constraint" describes how much a patient's capacity to engage in social interactions, such as engaging in hobbies and leisure activities or visiting friends and family, is impacted by their heart failure symptoms. Patients' perceptions of their capacity to stop heart failure exacerbations and handle consequences are referred to as self-efficacy. Using the Patient Health Questionnaire, depressive mood was evaluated.

(PHQ-9).

Regarding overall quality of life or depressive mood, married and unmarried patients did not differ from one another. In contrast to the married group, the singles group performed lower on the self-efficacy and social constraints tests.

In the course of a 10-year follow-up, 679 patients (67%) passed away. All-cause mortality (hazard ratio [HR] 1.58, 95 percent confidence interval [CI] 1.31-1.92) and cardiovascular death (HR 1.83, 95 percent CI 1.38-2.42) were associated with increased risks of being single than married. With hazard ratios of 1.70 and 2.22 for all-cause and cardiovascular death, respectively, compared to the married group, widowed patients had the highest mortality risk.

"The relationship between marriage and longevity emphasises the significance of social support for patients with heart failure, an issue that has grown even more pertinent with social isolation during the epidemic," stated Dr. Kerwagen. In order to address any gaps, health providers might think about enquiring about the marital status and larger social network of their patients and recommending heart failure support groups. While education is important, healthcare professionals should also work to increase their patients' self-care confidence. We are developing a mobile health app that we hope will help people with heart failure manage their condition on a daily basis.