Caregiver Strain and Heart Failure Patient Clinical Event Risk.

Background: In a study of Italian heart failure patient-caregiver dyads, greater caregiver strain significantly predicted lower patient clinical event risk. Objective: The purpose of this secondary analysis was to examine this relationship in a sample from the United States. Methods: Data came from 92 dyads who participated in a self-care intervention. Logistic regression was used to test the relationship between baseline strain (Bakas Caregiving Outcomes Scale, divided into tertiles) and patient likelihood of events (heart failure hospitalization/emergency visit or all-cause mortality) over 8 months. Results: Nearly half of patients (n = 40, 43.5%) had an event. High (vs low) caregiver strain was associated with a 92.7% event-risk reduction, but with substantial variability around the effect (odds ratio, 0.07; 95%confidence interval, 0.01--0.63; P = .02). Conclusions: Although findings were similar to the Italian study, the high degree of variability and contrasting findings to other studies signal a level of complexity that warrants further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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