Effects of nurse‐led self‐care interventions on health outcomes among people with heart failure: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

AIM: To estimate the effects of nurse-led self-care interventions on people with heart failure (HF). BACKGROUND: Research evidence of the effects of nurse-led HF self-care interventions on patient outcomes is scant. DESIGN: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials (RCTs). DATA SOURCES: Six databases (MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, CENTRAL, CINAHL and PsycINFO) were searched from the inception to December 2022 to identify eligible studies. METHODS: RCTs published in English that evaluated the impact of nurse-led HF self-care interventions on quality of life, anxiety, symptom burden, sleep quality, healthcare service utilisation and mortality were included. The risk of bias in included studies was assessed using RoB 2.0. We conducted data syntheses using the R software and graded the quality of the evidence using the GRADE approach. The systematic review was conducted in accordance with the PRISMA. RESULTS: Twenty-five studies with 2746 subjects were included. Our findings demonstrated, that compared to the controls, nurse-led self-care interventions improved QOL (SMD: .83, 95% CI: .50-1.15, moderate evidence), anxiety (MD: 1.39, 95% CI: .49-2.29, high evidence) and symptom burden (SMD: .81, 95% CI: .24-1.38, low evidence) in people with HF. No significant effects were found in all-cause hospital readmission and all-cause emergency department visit. Research evidence on sleep quality, cardiac-related hospital readmission, cardiac-related emergency department visit and all-cause mortality remained unclear. CONCLUSIONS: Our review suggests that nurse-led HF self-care interventions have favourable effects on the QOL, anxiety and symptom burden. Further, well-designed RCTs are warranted to address the gaps identified in this review. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE: The results indicated that nurse-led HF self-care interventions could improve QOL, anxiety and symptom burden in people with HF. Nurse-led self-care intervention could be integrated into current HF management practices.