Effect of Educational Interventions to Reduce Readmissions due to Heart Failure Decompensation in Adults: a Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.

The educational programs varied widely in frequency, duration, method, and staff, so the review cannot tell which parts of the intervention produced the effect. Patients and staff could not be blinded to the educational interventions, and only 48.8% of studies were rated low risk for blinding of outcome assessment. Allocation concealment was optimal in 65.1% of studies, so some trials had unclear or high risk of bias in how participants were assigned. Two studies were excluded from the meta-analysis because their readmission follow-up times did not match the other studies. The authors did not use GRADE to rate the certainty of the evidence. They did not perform additional analyses or meta-regressions to explain heterogeneity when values were above 60%. The search was limited to English, Portuguese, and Spanish, which may have excluded relevant trials.

The text states the article derives from a project funded by the research development committee (CODI). It does not report commercial funding or author conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that educational programs prevent heart failure readmissions immediately after discharge. The pooled analysis found no reduction at follow-ups under 3 months or at 3 months, 9 months, or 24 months, and the programs included several components, so the effect cannot be assigned to education alone.