ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Cardiovascular Nursing
This article is part of the Research TopicEducation Across the Cardiovascular Continuum: Multidisciplinary and Compassionate Approaches for Patients, Families, Caregivers, and ProfessionalsView all articles
Latent Profiles of Volume Management Behaviors and Their Relationship with Symptom Distress in Patients with Chronic Heart Failure
Provisionally accepted
- 1Nantong 4th People's Hospital, Nantong, China
- 2The Sixth People's Hospital of Nantong, Nantong, China
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Objective: To explore the latent categories of volume management behaviors in patients with chronic heart failure (CHF) and analyze their relationship with symptom distress. Methods: This cross-sectional study utilized a convenience sampling method to select 552 CHF patients from the cardiology departments of Nantong Sixth People's Hospital and Nantong Fourth People's Hospital. Volume management behaviors were assessed using the Volume Management Behavior Scale, and symptom distress was evaluated using the Symptom Distress Questionnaire (SDQ), which measures the severity of eight core symptoms. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) was employed to identify behavioral categories. Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and multiple linear regression were used to analyze differences in symptom distress across behavioral categories and to examine the independent predictive effect of behavioral classification on symptom distress. Results: The volume management behaviors of CHF patients were classified into three latent categories: active management type (43.1%), selective adherence type (27.7%), and passive dependence type (29.2%). Symptom distress scores showed a significant increasing trend across the three categories (active type: 10.5 ± 3.8; selective type: 13.2 ± 4.1; passive type: 16.3 ± 5.2, P < 0.001). After controlling for confounding factors such as age, gender, and NYHA classification, behavioral categories independently explained 41% of the total variance in symptom distress (adjusted R² = 0.41, F = 32.17, P < 0.001), with the passive dependence type demonstrating the strongest predictive effect (β = 5.82, 95% CI: 4.21–7.43). Conclusion: CHF patients exhibit three distinct clinical patterns of volume management behaviors, with the passive dependence type associated with the highest symptom burden. Behavioral category is a significant predictor of symptom distress. These findings provide an empirical basis for developing precise intervention strategies tailored to different behavioral phenotypes.
Keywords: chronic heart failure, latent profile analysis, older, Symptom distress, Volume management behavior
Received: 31 Oct 2025; Accepted: 10 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Liu, Gu, Yang and Lu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Yi Lu
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