Utilidad de la Escala de Minnesota en el seguimiento de los pacientes con insuficiencia cardiaca crónica

Introduction

The Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ) is a widely used scale to measure quality of life in patients with heart failure. The aim of the study was to analyse the usefulness of the MLHFQ in the follow-up of patients with chronic heart failure and establish the relationship with New York Heart Association (NYHA) functional class and ejection fraction.

Materials and methods

We reviewed 172 records, we presented general characteristics, assessed the internal validity and reliability and explored differences between the overall outcomes and by domain vs. ejection fraction and NYHA functional class.

Results

The median age of the patients was 63 (57; 72) years, with a predominance of males (67.4%). Fifty-one point one percent had an ejection fraction < 40%. The reliability coefficients in the 3 domains were > 0.6; the physical domain was the most affected; significant differences were found in ejection fraction in the «Others» domain. Regarding the NYHA admission, significant differences were observed in 3 domains, we found lower quality of life in patients with a higher NYHA score.

Conclusions

The MLHFQ proved to be reliable and valid in measuring the quality of life in patients with heart failure by demonstrating lower quality of life in patients who had worse functional class; comparing the quality of life of patients with preserved versus reduced ejection fraction, only differences were found in one domain.