The impact of a self-management patient education program for patients with chronic heart failure undergoing inpatient cardiac rehabilitation.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate a patient-centred self-management educational group program for patients with chronic systolic heart failure as compared to usual care education during inpatient cardiac rehabilitation.

METHODS: A multicentre cluster randomized controlled trial of 475 patients was conducted. In the intervention condition, patients received the new self-management educational group program whereas in the control condition, patients received a short lecture-based educational program (usual care). The primary outcome was patients' self-reported self-management competence. Secondary outcomes included self-management health behaviour, health-related quality of life, and treatment satisfaction. Patients completed self-reported outcome measures at admission, discharge, and after 6 and 12 months.

RESULTS: There was a significant small between-group intervention effect on certain dimension of patients' self-management competence (self-monitoring and insight) in short term (p<0.05). Furthermore, significant small effects were observed for treatment satisfaction at discharge as well as symptom monitoring after 6 months (p<0.05) and by trend on symptom monitoring and physical activity after 12 months.

CONCLUSIONS: The patient-centred self-management program might be more effective in certain self-management outcomes than a usual care education in both short-term and long-term periods.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Therefore, such programs may be considered for dissemination within cardiac rehabilitation.