Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a progressive, complex, clinical syndrome resultingfrom structural and/or functional cardiac disorders that impair systolic and/or diastolicventricular function. The dominating clinical symptoms are shortness of breath, fatigue, exercise intolerance and peripheral oedema. This considerably affects physical,psychological and social functions of the individual, often making normal daily lifeactivity difficult. The treatment for CHF is both pharmacological and nonpharmacological. Patient education, support and counselling are important parts of thenon-pharmacological treatment and aims among other things to improve self-care behaviour and adherence to the treatment.Thirst is, in clinical practise, a common reason for complaint in patients with CHF.One factor that can cause or aggravate thirst is the recommendation to be restrictivewith fluid intake. In international guidelines for CHF treatment, a fluid restriction of1,5-2L/day is often recommended. However, neither is this recommendation based onscientific evidence, nor has it been investigated if and how such a recommendationaffects the patients’ physical and mental health. The overall aim of this thesis was todescribe and evaluate self-care behaviour and to describe daily life experiences in patients with CHF, with special reference to fluid intake.The aims of Study I were to: (1) describe self-care with special regard to daily selfweighing and salt and fluid restriction in patients with heart failure in primary healthcare, during one year of monthly telephone follow-up after a single session education,(2) to describe gender differences in regard to self-care and (3) to investigate if selfcare was associated with health-related quality of life. The study was a subgroupanalysis of the interventional group from a larger randomised trial. No changes werefound in self-care behaviour throughout the study period. The intervention had no effect on quality of life and no associations were found between quality of life and selfcare behaviour. There were no statistically significant differences between the genders.