Training of Healthcare workers to Manage Chronic Heart Failure: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: There is currently no standardized education or training program for becoming a heart failure nurse and other healthcare workers in Europe, and the optimal level of experience, training, and education for this role is still being debated. This review focused on the educational and capacity building of interventions led by health workers which aimed to improve outcomes of patients with heart failure.
Methods: For this review, studies were gathered from searches of Ovid MEDLINE and EMBASE databases, with the help of a librarian, for English language literature from 2000 to August 2022. The inclusion criteria for the studies required a randomized design. The following databases were searched for relevant papers: CINAHL, MEDLINE, SCOPUS, the Cochrane Controlled Trials Register, and the National Research Register. The reference lists of all retrieved papers were also checked to make sure no relevant papers were missed. A data extraction tool was created based on existing appraisal frameworks and examples of data extraction forms, and was tested on three studies to ensure its suitability for this review. The data extraction tool was designed to provide a summary of the primary studies to make it easier to synthesize the data.
Results: This review analyzed the results of 9 studies that looked at the effectiveness of interventions for managing heart failure. These interventions involved symptom monitoring by nurses through telephone calls with patients. The review found that there was a 20% relative risk reduction in the combined outcome of heart failure hospitalizations and deaths, largely due to reductions in heart failure hospitalization. There was also a 47% reduction in the primary outcome of all-cause hospitalization or emergency room visits.
Conclusions: Early intervention and a multidisciplinary approach to management, including the use of advanced practice registered nurses, can improve survival and delay disease progression in patients with heart failure.