Impact of a Nurses-Led Telephone Intervention Program on the Quality of Life in Patients with Heart Failure in a District Hospital of Greece

Background: Patients with chronic heart failure (HF) and their families experience a wide range of complex problems, which negatively impact the quality of patients’ lives. Moreover, besides its debilitating symptoms, the disease necessitates frequent hospital admissions, imposing a financial burden on the health system.

Aim: To assess whether nurses-led telephone intervention on a regular basis in HF patients may upgrade the quality of their lives.

Material and methods: Telephone intervention lasted for 16 weeks in patients with confirmed HF type New York Heart Association (NYHA) II and III. The study population comprised 50 patients, male and female, who were randomly allocated into 2 groups: Group A, the intervention group and Group B, the control group. Each study group consisted of 25 patients. Data was collected via a questionnaire that was completed by the patients and that included demographic, social data and the "Minnesota Living with Heart Failure Questionnaire (MLHFQ)".

Results: Prior to the telephone intervention the MLHFQ score in group A was 50.88. In group B the score was 52.40. There is no statistical significance between the 2 groups. After the intervention the MLHFQ score in group A was 31.52 and in group B was 53.80. There is a statistically significant difference in the total score on the scale MLHFQ between patients in the 2 groups (p<0.001). A statistically significant difference was also observed among scores from the first and the second measurement of patients between the 2 groups p<0.001.

Conclusions: Our study indicates that the quality of life of HF patients post-telephone intervention improved significantly. However, there were no further significant correlations.

Author(s):

Theodosios Stavrianopoulos

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