Abstract:

The aim of the paper was to understand patients with heart failure, with a particular emphasis on their experiences of food and food intake through developing a theoretical model. The study is descriptive and exploratory in nature while using grounded theory approach because the study is inductive in nature, which means that the author wanted to generate theories and models rather than to test hypothesis. The study has used qualitative method and data collection method was interviews of patients with heart failure. To analyse the interviews, interview transcripts were sorted in different categories or patterns, each pattern were coded and then recoded. This means that there were various categories and sub-categories; this helped the authors to see various relations and interactions between categories and/or sub categories. The findings of paper suggest that there are two primary categories, emotions and meaning for food. Emotions such as positive ones could be associated for wellbeing and comfort while negative emotions could be associated with sorrow and burden. Moreover, the patient’s experiences of food and eating changed during the course of the disease. Patients with severe heart failure had increased problems with food and ate only for sake of sustenance as a result weight loss was found in those patients. Therefore, as patients with heart failure suffered with sad emotions it reflected in their eating habits, i.e. they lost interest in eating which further resulted in losing weight. These problems are more common in patients above 80 years old however primary health care nurse could help their situation.