Abstract Body (Do not enter title and authors here): Background: Self-care can improve several outcomes in patients with cardiovascular disease, but its practice may be hindered by some factors, including deficits in interoceptive abilities (i.e., ability to perceive and respond to internal bodily signals, including symptoms). Although limited, there is evidence of altered interoception in people with chronic conditions, which is in turn associated with altered symptom perception and decision making, which are key elements of self-care. The study of interoception is recent and new insights are needed to understand how to target this variable to improve patient outcomes including self-care.
Research question: How are interoceptive sensibility and self-care associated in adults with cardiovascular disease?
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study involving adults with cardiovascular disease. The Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness V2 was used to measure interoceptive sensibility, while the Self-Care of Chronic Illness Inventory was used to measure self-care. Linear regression was used to describe the unadjusted relationships between interoceptive sensibility domains and self-care dimensions. Plus, hierarchical linear regression modeling was used to quantify additional explained variance in self-care in adjusted analysis.
Results: Participants (n=387) had a mean age of 50.2 years, and were mainly female (53.5%), married (66.4%), and white (66.4%). Among the self-care dimensions, interoceptive sensibility explained the most variance of self-care management. Among the interoceptive sensibility domains, higher trust was associated with greater self-care maintenance and confidence; higher body listening was associated with higher levels of all self-care dimensions; higher noticing was associated with greater self-care monitoring, management and confidence; higher distraction was associated with worse self-care maintenance and lower self-care confidence; higher self-regulation was associated with worse self-care monitoring; and higher worrying was associated with worse self-care management.
Conclusion: In adults with cardiovascular disease, interoceptive sensibility is associated with self-care, especially self-care management. This suggests that enhancing body awareness can support more adaptive self-care behaviours. Tailored interventions targeting specific interoceptive domains could improve different self-care dimensions.