The Impact of Enhanced Instruction on Self-Care Behaviors in Adults with Heart Failure

Heart failure is a chronic disease affecting millions of people worldwide and carries a high burden on both patients and society. Current guidelines encourage the use of patient education along with medical therapy to improve outcomes. The aim of this manuscript is to describe a quality improvement (QI) project conducted to improve self-care behaviors among participants living with heart failure. The need for this project was identified at an outpatient clinic where patients with heart failure (HF) were not receiving printed education materials or enhanced instruction. Through literature review, several studies identified potential barriers to adherence including complexity of treatment, low health literacy, and heart failure symptoms, while other studies displayed the positive impact of enhanced instruction on heart failure outcomes and self-care. This QI project was conducted over a 4-week period and involved a telehealth intervention utilizing printed education and teach-back to improve self-care behaviors. Participants completed self-care behavior surveys pre and post intervention. Improvements were noted among self-care scores of all the participants, although the sample size was small. From these results, it was recommended to the outpatient clinic to continue to provide printed education to patients with heart failure and incorporate a telehealth follow-up program to emphasize proper self-care behaviors for these patients. Future projects and research should be focused on larger sample sizes for longer periods of time and include the tracking of heart failure outcomes.