The Relationships between Healthcare Needs and Quality of Life in Youth with Congenital Heart Disease: Health Promoting Behaviors as a Mediator.

• Main Authors: Yan-Ju Chen, 陳彥儒
• Other Authors: Chi-Wen Chen
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/4ct3zn

碩士 === 國立陽明大學 === 臨床暨社區護理研究所 === 104 === Background: There were various types of congenital heart diseases (CHD) and the symptoms were associated with severity of diseases. Nowadays, the survival rate of CHD has approached to 90% after surgical corrections therefore more and more patients who suffered from CHD are able to live through their adolescent and beyond. Most surviving patients presented residua and sequelae which may become the vital health problems in their adulthood. It was an important transitional period for the improvement of health self-management from late adolescence to early adulthood. In order to improve the quality of life (QOL), it was necessary to understand the crucial healthcare needs for and health promoting behaviors of youth with CHD. Objectives: This study aimed to explore the QOL of youth with CHD in Taiwan and associated factors, focusing on healthcare needs, health promoting behaviors, and the status differences between patients with ventricular septal defect (VSD) and tetralogy of fallot (TOF) in their late adolescent and young adulthood. Methods: This was a cross-sectional study with descriptive correlation research design. 205 youths of age between 15 to 24 who suffered from VSD and TOF were selected by convenient sampling method. The Taiwanese Short Version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life (WHOQOL-BREF [TW]), Questionnaire for Healthcare Needs of Adolescents with CHD, and Adolescent Health Promotion (AHP) scale were administrated to assess QOL, healthcare needs, and health promoting behaviors of participants respectively. Results: It was found, healthcare needs, health promoting behaviors, and QOL of participants are positively correlated. The overall health promoting behavior served as the mediator between overall healthcare needs and QOL. The implementation of health promoting behaviors of participants in their late adolescent was significant higher than those in their young adulthood. The healthcare needs showed no significant differences between participants in late adolescent and young adulthood while this variable also showed no differences between participants with VSD or TOF. Conclusions: The study illustrates that health promoting behaviors have impacts on the health healthcare needs and quality of life for youths with congenital heart diseases. It is important to focus on the implementation of health promoting behaviors to develop a better quality of life for youths with congenital heart diseases especially in their early adulthood.