None listed
Conditions
Brief summary
Chronic heart failure (CHF) is a costly and debilitating condition. The benefits of applying nurse led CHF management programs (CHF-MPs) has shown that they improve health outcomes in CHF, especially in prolonging survival & reducing hospital readmission. The aim of WHICH? is to determine whether clinic based or home based programs produce the best outcomes. A randomised study of 1000 patients is proposed. Patterns of health care and quality of life will then be compared. The perspective examined will be health, economic, health policy and consumer.
Interventions
Both groups are interventional and will be enrolled either into a homebased program or clinical based program. It is a comparative study of home-based management program versus clinic based intervention program. Participants will have a total of four visits. Each visit will consist of an interview and completion of quality of life questionnaires. It is anticipated that each visit will be 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. Each patient will have access to a core team of heart failure specialists includin
Both groups are interventional and will be enrolled either into a homebased program or clinical based program. It is a comparative study of home-based management program versus clinic based intervention program. Participants will have a total of four visits. Each visit will consist of an interview and completion of quality of life questionnaires. It is anticipated that each visit will be 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours. Each patient will have access to a core team of heart failure specialists including cardiologist, pharmacist and CHF nurse. These visit will be at recruitment and six-monthly intervals up to a maximum of 18 months.
Sponsors
Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute
Study design
Allocation
Randomised controlled trial
Intervention model
Parallel
Primary purpose
Treatment
Masking
Open (masking not used)
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
All
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
No
Inclusion criteria
Patients aged equal to or greater than 18 years who were discharged to home were eligible to participate if they had a diagnosis of CHF, as confirmed by a cardiologist and consistent with Australian guidelines 23) with persistent moderate to severe symptoms (NYHA II-III), and a recent history of at least one admission for acute heart failure.
Exclusion criteria
They were excluded if they lived outside a 30km radius of the participating hospital, had a terminal condition (other than CHF) that was likely to result in death or hospitalisation within 12 months, were non-English speaking and/or unable to give fully informed consent (e.g. due to significant cognitive impairment).
Outcome results
None listed