Key result
Patients with chronic heart failure and newly verified sleep-disordered breathing (n=17) experienced reduced sleep quality that negatively impacted their daily lives and partners.
Why the study?
Knowledge of how sleep-disordered breathing is experienced and handled by patients with chronic heart failure is limited, but needed to provide patient-centred care.
Patients with chronic heart failure and sleep-disordered breathing experience reduced sleep quality that impacts daily life, highlighting the need for patient-centered treatment strategies, especially for central sleep apnea.
May inform holistic sleep assessments in heart failure; hypothesis-generating for integrated management trials.
BACKGROUND: Sleep-disordered breathing, including obstructive sleep apnoea and central sleep apnoea, is a common disorder among patients with chronic heart failure. Obstructive sleep apnoea is often treated with continuous positive airway pressure, but central sleep apnoea lacks a clear treatment option. Knowledge of how sleep-disordered breathing is experienced (e.g. difficulties and care needs) and handled (e.g. self-care actions) by the patients is limited, but needed, to provide patient-centred care. AIM: To explore how newly verified sleep-disordered breathing is experienced by patients with chronic heart failure. METHODS: Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed with qualitative content analysis. Seventeen participants (14 men, three women), mean age 60 years (range 41-80) diagnosed with chronic heart failure and objectively verified sleep-disordered breathing (nine obstructive, seven central and one mixed) were strategically selected from heart failure outpatient clinics at two Norwegian university hospitals. RESULTS: Patients with chronic heart failure and newly verified sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) described experiences of poor sleep that had consequences for their daily life and their partners. Different self-care strategies were revealed, but they were based on 'common sense' and were not evidence-based. The awareness of having SDB was varied; for some, it gave an explanation to their trouble while others were surprised by the finding. CONCLUSION: Patients with chronic heart failure and sleep-disordered breathing experienced reduced sleep quality, influencing their daily life. Possible underlying causes of disrupted sleep, such as sleep-disordered breathing, should be identified to establish proper patient-centred treatment strategies. There is a need for new strategies to approach patients with chronic heart failure (i.e. those with central sleep apnoea) who are not subject to continuous positive airway pressure treatment for their sleep-disordered breathing.
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Gullvåg et al. (2019) studied Chronic heart failure and sleep-disordered breathing (n=17). Patients with chronic heart failure and newly verified sleep-disordered breathing (n=17) experienced reduced sleep quality that negatively impacted their daily lives and partners.
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