Validity and reliability of the European Heart Failure Self-care Behavior Scale among adults from the United States with symptomatic heart failure

Abstract

Background: Heart failure (HF) self-care is an important component of disease management and the focus of many interventions. Aim: The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the nine-item European HF Self-care Behavior Scale (EHFScB-9) in a sample of 200 adults from the USA with symptomatic HF. Methods: Psychometric tests included item and confirmatory factor analyses, convergent and discriminant validity, and internal consistency. Results: Item-total correlations ranged from 0.25 to 0.65. Many fit indices for the EHFScB-9 and the four-item consulting behaviors scale reached thresholds of acceptability. As expected, the EHFScB-9 was associated with other measures of HF self-care but not with quality-of-life. Coefficient α was 0.80 for the EHFScB-9 and 0.85 for the consulting behaviors subscale. Conclusion: The EHFScB-9 was a valid and reliable measure of HF self-care among English-speaking US adults with symptomatic HF. © The European Society of Cardiology 2012.