Hou et al. (2004) interviewed 165 patients with heart
failure at baseline during an outpatient heart failure clinic
visit and again at 26 weeks. The researchers wanted to
determine if there were significant differences in healthrelated
quality of life between gender and age. Age was
categorized as heart failure patients younger than 65 and
patients 65 and older. The initial baseline results revealed
women less than 65 years of age had poorer healthrelated
quality of life than the other groups; however,
their scores did improve at 26 weeks. Based on these findings the authors recommended future research be conducted
to determine why, at baseline interviews, women
less than 65 years of age experience poor health-related
quality of life.