Effects of Engaging Hospitalized Heart Failure Patients in a Self-Care Management Protocol on Self-Care Self-Confidence Levels

Delivering high quality heart failure (HF) management and education to empower patients to manage successfully in the community is imperative. Common trends observed impacting HF patients and concerning inpatient nurses on a medical cardiology unit were identified and discussed. Understanding accessing and adhering to a low salt diet, fluid restriction, and daily weights were all commonly identified challenges by direct care nurses of HF patients. Nurses reported increased frustration with patients not knowing or possessing little awareness of their fluid restriction or how to manage or articulate restrictions during the inpatient stay. Nurses felt intake and output (I&O) and daily weight management were critically important, targeting confidence in these self-care behaviors while inpatient could result in the most impact for this population. This project set out to determine the effect of shifting from all nursing-provided care which may in fact be an “enabler,” to a self-care approach for hospitalized HF patients on their self-care confidence levels. This project sought to increase patient engagement in common HF self-care skills specifically, daily weight measurements and intake and output (I&O) while inpatient. The participant’s self-care confidence level was measured baseline and prior to hospital discharge. Results reflected a statistically significant increase in self-care confidence levels of HF patients who actively participated in a self-care management (SCM) protocol while inpatient