A 12-week nurse-led, stage-tailored home-based programme of home visits and telephone follow-up was associated with improved self-care behaviour in people with heart failure and showed potential to support home-based self-management when centre-based cardiac rehabilitation was unavailable.
At 12 weeks, the intervention group had better self-care scores than the usual-care control group.
Secondary outcomes favoured the intervention group: better quality of life, higher self-efficacy, and greater 6-minute walk distance.
Exploratory clinical outcomes showed changes in some parameters, including ejection fraction and body-fluid values.
Most intervention participants reached the Transtheoretical Model action stage, and NYHA class improved significantly.
The trial tested a nurse-led home-based model in clinically stable adults with heart failure who could not access structured centre-based rehabilitation.
The authors conclude that the home-based model may support continuity of care after specialist cardiology assessment when centre-based rehabilitation is unavailable.
This study tested whether nurse-led support at home could help people with heart failure manage their condition better. Sixty-three adults aged 40-75 with stable, mild-to-moderate heart failure were randomly assigned to either usual care or a 12-week programme. The programme combined nurse home visits with telephone follow-up and was tailored to each person's readiness to change their habits. The participants could not easily attend a centre-based cardiac rehabilitation programme. After 12 weeks, the group who received the programme had better self-care scores than the usual-care group. They also had better quality of life, greater confidence in managing their condition, and walked farther in a 6-minute walking test. Most people in the programme reached the 'action' stage of behaviour change, and their heart failure symptom class improved. Some measures of heart function and body fluid also changed, though the summary does not give details. This research suggests that nurse-led home-based support could help fill the gap when rehabilitation centres are not available. Limits are worth noting: the study was small (63 people), lasted only 12 weeks, and included only people with relatively stable heart failure. The summary available here gives few details on the size of the effects, so the findings would need confirming in larger studies.
Çelik H, Özen B. (2026). Home-based nurse-led self-management support for heart failure: a randomized controlled trial.. Primary health care research & development. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1463423626102059