Cardiac Rehabilitation And Quality Of Life Scores

Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ) Calculator

Clinical calculation support · Verify results before clinical use

Instructions: Consider the impact of heart failure on daily life over the past four weeks. Select one response for every item, from 0 (no impact) to 5 (very much).

Important: The prompts below are paraphrased summaries. The official MLHFQ is a licensed instrument; use an authorized, validated version for formal clinical assessment or research.

Questionnaire responses

Complete all 21 items to calculate the total and standard physical and emotional dimension sums.

— Total score
Heart failure causing swelling in your ankles or legs
Needing to sit or lie down to rest during the day
Difficulty walking or climbing stairs
Difficulty doing work around the house or yard
Difficulty going places away from home
Difficulty sleeping well at night
Difficulty relating to or doing things with friends or family
Difficulty working to earn a living
Difficulty with recreation, sports, or hobbies
Difficulty with sexual activities
Eating less of the foods you like
Shortness of breath
Tiredness, fatigue, or low energy
Needing to stay in hospital
Costs of medical care
Side effects from treatment
Feeling like a burden to family or friends
Feeling a loss of self-control in your life
Worry
Difficulty concentrating or remembering things
Feeling depressed

About the MLHFQ score

The Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire is a disease-specific patient-reported outcome measure designed to assess the effects of heart failure on health-related quality of life over the preceding four weeks.

Scoring

MeasureItemsRangeMeaning
Total scoreAll 210–105Higher is worse
Physical dimension2–7, 12–130–40Higher is worse
Emotional dimension17–210–25Higher is worse

Interpretation and limitations

  • Scores are calculated by summing the item responses. A score of zero represents no reported impact; the maximum total score is 105.
  • The physical and emotional dimensions are standard subscales; the remaining items contribute to the total score but not to these two subscale sums.
  • Do not infer a diagnosis, prognosis, or treatment decision from the score alone. Interpret change over time in the context of the patient's clinical status and the version administered.
  • This page uses paraphrased item summaries and must not be treated as a validated administration of the copyrighted questionnaire.

References

Rector TS, Kubo SH, Cohn JN. Patients’ self-assessment of their congestive heart failure: content, reliability and validity of a new measure, the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure questionnaire. Heart Failure. 1987;3:198–209. Original development and validation reference; bibliographic details should be checked against the journal archive before formal citation.
University of Minnesota, Technology Commercialization. Quality of Life Questionnaire: Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ). Instrument description, scoring, and licensing information. Official instrument and licensing information.
American Thoracic Society. The Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire: instrument overview and scoring characteristics. Questionnaire overview.
Garín O, et al. The Minnesota living with heart failure questionnaire: comparison of different factor structures. Quality of Life Research. 2016. This paper discusses dimensional structure and scoring. Full text.
Clinical and licensing disclaimer: This calculator performs arithmetic on selected responses. It does not independently establish clinical validity, diagnose heart failure severity, or recommend treatment. The MLHFQ is a copyrighted/licensed instrument; confirm permissions and use the authorized language version for patient care, publication, or research. Local legal, institutional, and clinical requirements apply.
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