Psychosocial adjustment of people with heart failure: diagnosis and nursing interventions

Abstract

Study which objective is to analyze the nursing diagnoses (ND) representing the process of psychosocial adaptation of a group of people with heart failure (HF) and nursing interventions, based on the theory of nadaptation of Callista Roy. It is a descriptive and transverse research held with 28 patients in the ambulatory of a public hospital in Fortaleza-CE. Data were collected by interviews between May and August of 2007. The legal and ethical aspects were considered. The results showed the identification of the Nursing Diagnosis: ineffective performance of roles, a sense of powerlessness, prone to behavioral health risk, sexual dysfunction and ineffective control of therapeutic regimen. The combination of this Nursing Diagnosis with adaptive problems of Roy led to the identification of: failure of role, sexual dysfunction and feeling of powerlessness. Such problems were related to the HF and to the changes that it causes in the lives of these people, causing anxiety and depression, interfering with the quality of life. Before the findings, it is expected to raise thoughts of nurses to perform the clinical care of patients with HF, considering their adaptation problems, encouraging them to reach the chronic health condition