ABSTRACT
Introduction: Heart failure patients believe that physical and psychological symptoms and worries about life and death are characteristics of disease in their life and in this context, there is no specific and culturally appropriate tool to measure their illness related worries. This study was conducted for development and psychometric properties evaluation of Illness Related Worries Questionnaire [IRWQ] in heart failure patients
Methods: In this quantitative-qualitative study, based on the findings obtained from interviews with 22 heart failure patients from patients of Hazrat e Rasool e Akram, Imam Hossein and Shariati Hospitals in Tehran in 2013, literature, and the designed questionnaires about illness related worries, primary items associated illness related worries in heart failure patients, were developed. After measuring face validity and content validity, the construct validity and reliability of the questionnaire was assessed on 130 patients with heart failure. The data were analyzed using SPSS software, version 19
Results: With face validity and content validity questionnaire was created with 23 items and four factors [9 items on first factor, 8 items on second factor, 4 items on third factor and 2 items on fourth factor]. These dimensions were labeled: "cognitive independence" and "functional independence" as a subset of "independence" and "worry about future of disease" and "psycho-physical worry" as a subset of "worries related to symptoms". Reliability of illness related worries questionnaire was calculated 0.90 by using Cronbach's Alpha coefficient and 0.89 by using split-half method
Conclusion: Result of this study showed that illness related worries questionnaire is adequate, valid and reliable. Thus, using this questionnaire can be useful in doing further researches related to worries in different patients