Sammanfattning
Introduction: Living with heart failure is serious and call for long term rehabilitation care.
Rehabilitation elements for patients
with Heart Failure are based on the recommendations from the European Society of Cardiology and
focuses on self-care and
adherence in general. The aim of this study was, therefore, to test a protocol for rehabilitation of
patients after completing
rehabilitation in the outpatient clinic.
Method: The study design is quasi-experimental. Patients in the control group follow the conventional
rehabilitation. For the
patients in the intervention group an individual rehabilitation plan was prepared and followed up by
telephone after 4 and 12
weeks. For all patients Health Status were measured with Short Form 36 and EQ5D.
Results: One hundred and sixty-two patients are included in the study of which 137 (84.6%)
consented. There were no differences
in total self-care behavior between the groups at baseline and at follow-up after 4 and 12 weeks.
Within the control
group no changes in the self-care score from baseline to follow-up were observed. Total EQ5D scores
showed no significant
differences between the groups at baseline. Subgroup analyses showed a significant difference in
usual activities and decrease
in anxiety/depression in the intervention group with a within-group increase from 34.4 percent at
baseline to 51.4 percent after
12 weeks (p = .0002). No between-groups differences at 4 weeks or 12 weeks were observed.
Conclusion: No significant increase in Health Status between groups were found. Subgroup analysis
showed a significant
within-group decrease in development of anxiety in the intervention group from baseline to twelve
weeks. There may be a
correlation between the increase in self-care behavior in patients in the intervention group after 12
weeks and a reduction in
anxiety.