Chronic Heart Failure and its Impact
Chronic heart failure remains a global challenge, affecting the social and economic lives of patients, families, and the healthcare system. The disease happens regularly, requiring patients to visit a healthcare center for surveillance and hospitalization on a regular basis, lowering their quality of life. The health-care system bears a financial burden as a result of the patients' frequent visits.
The Goal of the Study
The goal of this article was to look at the impact of nurse-led telephone intervention programs and whether they can improve the quality of life for chronic heart failure patients in Greece. Implications of this research have on evidence-based nursing practice are great since its success means that it can be used to help patients around the world. The failure of the intervention will also be a learning point but the lives of the patients will already have been affected which is against the ethics in the nursing profession. The research comprised of studying the impact on 50 patients in a duration of 16 weeks and the data collected analyzed to see if the program was successful.
Description of the Research Question
Do nurse-led telephone interventions lead to improvement of the quality of lives of heart failure patients? The study randomly grouped the heart failure patients into two with one group being the intervention group with the other being the control group and each group had 25 patients. The patients would then fill in a questionnaire and from that, the data was collected and analyzed to establish if the intervention was successful. Some of the events or trends that could affect this question is when the heart failure patients enter the wrong data in the questionnaire leading to wrong results given. This will affect many people since the intervention can then be adopted in the health system.
Description of Research Design
In this study, the research design used by the author was descriptive. The problem was identified and an intervention was used to try and solve the problem. The research-based its findings on observing the data of patients based on the case study. A survey was conducted on a specific number of people and based on the data generated after 16 weeks, findings were given after a detailed analysis. This research design is effective since it can be done on a few people to represent many people. The weakness in this design is that the wrong results can be generated since the sample size used cannot represent all aspects involved when the intervention is implemented in a real-world healthcare setting.
Description of the Sample
The study categorized the patients into two groups each having 25 patients who were randomly selected. In my view, the sample size was not adequate since 25 patients cannot be used to represent many patients who have different characteristics. The study could have used a bigger number as this case study will impact the lives of many people around the world. The sample was biased since patients who were less than 18 years were not eligible for the study which was wrong as the patients can exhibit different characteristics from the rest and therefore needed to be considered.
Four nurses led the telephone intervention where they contacted each patient for approximately 20 minutes on a weekly basis for a period of 16 weeks (Stavrianopoulos, 2016). Based on the number of the sample size, the participants were enough and beneficial as they could easily know their patients better during the period of study as opposed to having many nurses. One gap is that the patients needed to fill in the questionnaire where the data would then be collected and analyzed. Considering some of the patients are above 65 years and some have low education level, the data provided can be wrong which will lead to wrong results given.
Description of Data Collection Methods
The patients were the ones responsible for filling in the questionnaire based on the study. After filling in the questionnaire, the questions were then transformed into some variables to be analyzed. Some of the tools use included the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test which was used to examine normality and a Levene’s test that asserted the homogeneity of data collected and if there were any fluctuations. Another tool used was Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) which was used to analyze the data. A Pearson chi-square test was also used to analyze the relationship between demographic data and telephone interventions that were collected. The data helped to establish the gender of the patients, education status, marital status, age, the frequency of hospital follow up, type of hospitalization and the NYHA HF Class of the patients. The research was based in Greece and was conducted between November 2010 and February 2011 which is a period of 16 weeks (Stavrianopoulos, 2016).
Description of Study Limitations
One limitation is that the study examined a few patients and gave its findings. The study could have focused on a larger number as it would have helped to capture all the aspects relating to the intervention. Before the findings of a medical-based case study are given, an important aspect is to look at the sample of the data used (Allmark, 2004). The second limitation is that the period was short to give a conclusive evidence on whether a nurse-led telephone intervention would lead to improvement of life of patients suffering from chronic heart disease. The study should have been done for a long period such as a year to better understand the patients and some of the characteristics that could affect the implementation of the intervention in the healthcare system. The study was biased since it examined patients who were above 18 years only. The results could have been different if the patients below 18 years were considered in the study. Another limitation is that the study did not explain if there was any case of the patients having been affected by the intervention. This is because when a patient visits the patients, the nurses or doctors could better study the patients based on the signs and symptoms they show due to chronic heart failure. It would have been better if the study looked at a case study of one patient who was positively impacted by the intervention and another on one who was negatively impacted.
Descriptions of the Findings
The findings showed that the telephone interventions by the patients had a positive effect in ensuring that the quality of lives of heart failure patients improved. The patients could reduce the number of visits to the hospitals as they could get help from nurses through the telephone and get advised. The healthcare facilities could reduce the number of patients coming to seek advice or for hospitalization due to heart failure while helped to reduce congestion and the cost that was previously incurred. The findings supported the research question and it proved the intervention can work in helping improve the quality of life of patients. There is credibility in the findings through a similar case study needs to be done in a different country and setting before the intervention is considered fit for implementation in the health care system.
Conclusion
Heart failure continues to be a challenge affecting people in the world both socially and economically. The telephone-based intervention that is to be used by nurses on heart failure patients can prove to provide a solution to this challenge. The intervention worked when it was done on a sample of a patient in Greece and it proved it would lead to improving the quality of life of patients and reduce the cost of healthcare for the hospitals. Though there are various limitations involved, the intervention can be helpful but first, a different case study needs to be done to establish the credibility of the findings. The evidence found in this study is not enough to give a conclusive finding and more research need to be done on this subject. The intervention can then be adapted to be used to help to solve other challenges the health care system I the world has been facing.
Reference
.Allmark P. (2004). “Should research samples reflect the diversity of the population?” Journal of
Medical Ethics. Volume 30, Issue 2. http://jme.bmj.com/content/30/2/185
Stavrianopoulos, Theodosios. (2016). Impact of a nurses-led telephone Intervention program on
the quality of life in patients with heart failure in a district hospital of Greece. Health
Science Journal, 10(4), 1.
http://www.hsj.gr/medicine/impact-of-a-nursesled-telephone-intervention-program-on-the-quality-of-life-in-patients-with-heart-failure-in-a-district-hospital.php?aid=9844
