Lessons learned from the implementation of a video health coaching technology intervention to improve self-care of family caregivers of adults with heart failure.
Karen B Hirschman, Kathryn H Bowles, Lydia Garcia-Gonzalez and 5 others
PMID 33341950WHAT IT FOUND
Virtual health coaching for heart failure caregivers was feasible, but only 26% of sessions ran as planned.
Poor video, lost connections, and locked tablets forced coaches to switch to FaceTime or phone; no self-care outcomes were reported.
Key findings
01Only about 26% of intervention sessions were conducted as originally specified with both video and audio.
02Video sessions dropped after 3 to 30 minutes, and sometimes both audio and video failed with a no network connection message.
03FaceTime was used in 35 of 109 sessions and supported virtual delivery in 73 of 109 sessions.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
This paper reports implementation lessons, not the trial's effect on caregiver self-care, stress, coping, health, or cost. The implementation findings come from the first 21 intervention caregivers in an ongoing trial, so they are early and small. The tablet was locked from personal or public Wi-Fi, which may have contributed to connectivity problems. Some hardware problems, such as the tablet going to sleep, were not solved. The article does not report how often caregivers used the health websites, and it does not describe control-group implementation or full trial outcomes.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as proof that virtual health coaching improves caregiver self-care or health. It reports early implementation problems and adaptations, not trial outcomes.