Hindawi Publishing Corporation Cardiology Research and Practice Volume 2012, Article ID 616372, 10 pages doi:10.1155/2012/616372 Research Article Gender Differences in the Inﬂuence of Social Support on One-Year Changes in Functional Status in Older Patients with Heart Failure Danielle M. Berard, Elizabeth G. VanDenKerkhof, Margaret Harrison, and Joan E. Tranmer School of Nursing, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada K7L 3N6 Correspondence should be addressed to Joan E. Tranmer, tranmerj@queensu.ca Received 6 February 2012; Accepted 25 April 2012 Academic Editor: Javed Butler Copyright © 2012 Danielle M. Berard et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The purpose of this study was to determine the combined eﬀects of gender and levels of social support on 1-year functional health outcomes in older persons diagnosed with heart failure (HF). Persons ≥ 65 years of age with an acute HF exacerbation (164 females; 271 males) were enrolled and followed for a year. Participants completed baseline and 12-month questionnaires containing clinical and demographic descriptive information and validated self-report measures of: (1) physical functioning (Medical Outcome Study [MOS] SF12 and Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire [KCCQ]) and (2) social support (MOS- Social Support Survey). Women were more likely to be single, widowed or divorced, living alone and earning less annual income. At baseline, women reported signiﬁcantly lower support and physical function scores. However, at 1 year there were no signiﬁcant gender diﬀerences in the proportion of men or women who experienced clinically meaningful functional decline or death across the year of follow- up. In multivariable modeling, men with lower levels of social support were more likely to experience functional decline. This was not the case for women. Our ﬁndings suggest that gender-directed strategies to promote optimization of function for both men and women living with HF in their community are warranted. 1. Introduction Heart failure (HF) is a common chronic cardiovascular disease that typically presents as episodes of acute exac- erbation combined with periods of clinical stability. HF aﬀects all ages, but in particular, is a disease of older adults. Due to its chronic nature, patients and their caregivers assume much of the daily management; thus, it is important to understand the inﬂuence of nonmedically related care factors, such as social support, on health outcomes and functionality. We know that the personal, clinical, and social proﬁles of persons with chronic conditions such as heart failure will vary. Older women are more likely to (a) have limited social supports, (b) be living on their own, with less ﬁnancial resources, (c) not access formalized supports such as cardiac rehabilitation programs, (d) report poorer health-related quality of life, and (e) have worse physical function, in comparison to men [1–3]. Research evidence also suggests that poor levels of social support are associated with mortality and other adverse outcomes in persons with cardiac disease [4–8]. Social support is often contextualized as interpersonal transactions that provide functional support consisting of (a) emotional support (involving care, love, and empathy), (b) instrumental or tangible support (goods and services), (c) informational support (including guidance or feedback or environmental information), or (d) appraisal (information speciﬁcally related to self-evaluation and care) [2]. Some postulate that social support facilitates coping and adaption and moderates the psychological and physiological consequences of illness [9, 10]. Given that high levels of social support may promote psychological and physical well-being and good health behaviours, it is unclear whether gender diﬀerences and varying levels of social support or a combination of these factors inﬂuence functional well-being and other health outcomes for older persons with HF [11]. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to describe the eﬀects of gender diﬀerences and social support on health outcomes, while controlling for personal demographics, disease severity, and comorbid conditions.