Measuring self-care in patients with heart failure: A review of the psychometric properties of the European Heart Failure Self-Care Behaviour Scale (EHFScBS).

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to review and evaluate the evidence related to psychometric properties of the European Heart Failure Self-Care Behaviour Scale (EHFScBS) that was developed and tested to measure health maintenance behaviours of heart failure (HF) patients and translated into several languages.

METHODS: PRISMA guidelines were used to search major health databases (PubMed, Scopus and ScienceDirect), to identify relevant studies. A literature search was undertaken in November 2015. An integrative review, aiming to bring together all evidence relating to the psychometric properties (validity, reliability) of the EHFScBS was conducted.

RESULTS: 13 eligible studies were included. The results showed content, discriminant and convergent validity of the 9- and 12-item scale across the samples, while the factor structure of both versions of the scale was inconsistent. Most commonly used reliability estimates (Cronbach's alpha) of the total scale were satisfactory.

CONCLUSION: Overall, published data demonstrate satisfactory psychometric properties of the EHFScBS, indicating that the scale is a reliable and valid tool for measuring health maintenance behaviours of HF patients.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Taking the findings regarding the factorial structure of the scale into account, we recommend the use of the total EHFScBS score or scores on specific items.