The Impact of Nurse-Led Cardiac Rehabilitation on Quality of Life and Biophysiological Parameters in Patients With Heart Failure: A Randomized Clinical Trial.
Porkodi Arjunan, Ramakrishnan Venkatakrishnan Trichur
PMID 33031130WHAT IT FOUND
Patients with heart failure who received nurse-led cardiac rehabilitation reported better quality of life at 3 months, and disease-specific quality of life at 1 month, than control patients.
The program bundled teaching, a booklet, a walk test, and phone calls.
Key findings
01At 3 months, the nurse-led cardiac rehabilitation group had significantly better physical, mental, and disease-specific quality of life than the routine-care control group.
02At 1 month, disease-specific quality of life was significantly better in the nurse-led group than in the control group.
03The intervention was a bundle of bedside teaching, a 6-minute walk test, a discharge booklet, and telephone calls every 2 weeks, so the effect of any single component cannot be separated.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The study was done in one tertiary hospital, so the results may not apply to other settings. Participants had ejection fraction below 40% and New York Heart Association class II or III symptoms, and some heart failure causes were excluded, so it does not cover all heart failure patients. The nurse-led intervention combined bedside teaching, a booklet, a 6-minute walk test, and telephone calls, so the contribution of any one part cannot be separated. The paper states that participants were blinded to assignment, but does not report blinding of investigators or outcome assessors. The paper estimated 10% attrition but did not report actual dropout numbers. For the biophysiological parameters, the text and table do not agree on the direction of some between-group differences. The 3-month follow-up may not show whether the quality-of-life benefit lasts longer.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that nurse-led cardiac rehabilitation alone caused the quality-of-life gain. The program bundled teaching, a booklet, a walk test, and phone calls, and the study was single-center.