HEART FAILURE self-care was significantly associated with sleep quality in a cross-sectional study of 309 patients with chronic heart failure, with poorer sleep linked to lower self-care scores.
Sleep Quality and Self-Care Association
Researchers examined the relationship between sleep quality and self-care behaviours in 309 patients with chronic heart failure hospitalised in cardiology wards during 2025.
Self-care was assessed using the Hippocratic Heart Failure Self-Care Scale, while sleep quality was measured using the Sleep Quality Scale for Coronary Care Patients.
The study found a moderate negative correlation between sleep quality and self-care. Higher sleep quality scores reflected poorer sleep, indicating that worsening sleep quality was associated with lower self-care performance.
Key Factors Influencing Self-Care
Several demographic and clinical factors were also associated with self-care behaviours.
Older age and longer nightly sleep duration showed positive associations with self-care, while higher body mass index was negatively correlated.
Patients with higher educational attainment achieved significantly greater self-care scores, and non-smokers reported better self-care than smokers.
Heart failure severity also influenced self-care outcomes. Patients in more advanced stages of heart failure had significantly lower self-care scores compared with those in earlier stages.
Physical activity was another important factor, with patients exercising more frequently reporting progressively higher self-care scores.
Sleep Quality Adds Predictive Value
Hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that demographic and clinical variables explained 42.0% of the variance in self-care scores.
When sleep quality was added to the model, it accounted for an additional 10.1% of variance, increasing the overall explanatory power to 52.1%. Nonetheless, poor sleep quality remained independently associated with lower self-care scores.
The researchers noted that the cross-sectional design prevents causal conclusions. However, the findings suggest sleep quality may represent a potentially modifiable factor in heart failure management.
Future interventional research is needed to determine whether improving sleep quality can enhance self-care behaviours and support better disease management among patients with heart failure.
Reference
Valizadeh L et al. Association between sleep quality and self-care in patients with heart failure: a cross‑sectional study. Sci Rep. 2026;DOI:10.1038/s41598-026-72331-2.
