Interprofessional heart failure education for self-care knowledge and medication adherence in cardiac rehabiliation patients: A short report

Abstract

Heart failure (HF), a costly and often deadly syndrome, is associated with hindered cardiac functioning. Suboptimal HF disease knowledge and related poor self-care practices result in worsening heart failure, increased rehospitalizations, decreased quality of life, and potential death. Provision of interprofessional education is essential to encourage disease understanding and reliable adoption of appropriate self-care behaviors. This short report describes the timely implementation of an evidence-based practice educational project (EBP) designed to augment heart failure knowledge and vital self-care management strategies, among phase II cardiac rehabilitation (CR) patients. Individual sessions led by interprofessionals included nursing, advanced nursing, nutrition, information technology, and exercise physiology clinicians. Post-intervention results suggest collaborative interprofessional patient education effectively enhanced knowledge (19.1 % increase) about overall heart failure and specifically improved medication adherence rates (5.4 % increase). Efficient and effective interprofessional self-care-focused education should become routine practice in phase II CR patients to address complex care challenges, decrease costs and improve overall outcomes.