Nursing Care for a Patient with Acute de novo Heart Failure: A case study

Abstract

A 73-year-old male patient had chest pain, dyspnea and orthopnea one day prior to inpatient admission. He was full conscious. His vital sign showed temperature of 36.5◦C, pulse of 68 /m, blood pressure of 110/80 mmHg, and respiratory rate of 18 /m, SpO2 of 96 % He reported no underlying disease. Physical examination found fine crepitation both lung, neck vein engorged, and pitting edema 1+. He was diagnosed as Acute de novo Heart Failure and admitted in internal medicine ward in order to provide medical treatment and nursing care for his health condition. The importance of caring patients in acute de novo heart failure is health behavior modification pattern that could be managed by themselves. To support such patient’s modifications, nurse played significant role to provide the knowledge about pathology, cause, sign and symptom, and treatment and to advice patient’s self-care such as chief complaint, eating healthy food, exercise, taking medicine and following up. Health education to help increase patient’s knowledge was organized through the content creation using illustrated brochures according to patient’s context. Evaluation was conducted by using the knowledge assessment questionnaire for self-care of heart failure patients before and after providing the health education.