Elsevier

JACC: Heart Failure

Volume 10, Issue 4, April 2022, Pages 217-226
JACC: Heart Failure

Mini-Focus Issue: Nonpharmacological Therapies in Heart Failure
State-of-the-Art Review
Spirituality in Patients With Heart Failure

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jchf.2022.01.014Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Palliative care is recommended for patients with heart failure; spirituality is a core domain of palliative care.

  • Studies suggest that spirituality serves as a target to improve quality of life and patient outcomes in heart failure.

  • Uniform measures of spirituality and further studies are needed to better understand spirituality in heart failure.

Abstract

With advances in heart failure (HF) treatment, patients are living longer, putting further emphasis on quality of life (QOL) and the role of palliative care principles in their care. Spirituality is a core domain of palliative care, best defined as a dynamic, multidimensional aspect of oneself for which 1 dimension is that of finding meaning and purpose. There are substantial data describing the role of spirituality in patients with cancer but a relative paucity of studies in HF. In this review article, we explore the current knowledge of spirituality in patients with HF; describe associations among spirituality, QOL, and HF outcomes; and propose clinical applications and future directions regarding spiritual care in this population. Studies suggest that spirituality serves as a potential target for palliative care interventions to improve QOL, caregiver support, and patient outcomes including rehospitalization and mortality. We suggest the development of a spirituality-screening tool, similar to the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 used to screen for depression, to identify patients with HF at risk for spiritual distress. Novel tools are soon to be validated by members of our group. Given spirituality in HF remains less well studied compared with other patient populations, further controlled trials and uniform measures of spirituality are needed to understand its impact better

Key Words

heart failure
quality of life
spirituality

Abbreviations and Acronyms

FACIT-Sp
Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Therapy-Spiritual Well-being Scale
FICA
Faith and Belief, Importance, Community, Address in Care
HF
heart failure
KCCQ
Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire
QOL
quality of life

Cited by (0)

John Teerlink, MD, served as Guest Editor for this paper.

The authors attest they are in compliance with human studies committees and animal welfare regulations of the authors’ institutions and Food and Drug Administration guidelines, including patient consent where appropriate. For more information, visit the Author Center.