A randomized controlled trial evaluating self-care among three groups of patients with heart failure educated by health educators, by volunteers and a control group

The intervention included two stages, first training nine female volunteers by a skilled general practitioner in a few workshops. The duration and number of workshops are depended on situation and necessity realized in the first session by obtaining feedback from participants. The materials obtained from heart failure text books and related sites such as (http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/)translated into a simple language under supervision a cardiologist, was used and provided slides of PowerPoint and pamphlets taught in workshops. Second step was performing educational program for two groups of patients with CHF randomly been allocated into group A or B. The group A was trained face to face at their homes by trained community health volunteers (CHVs) and second group divided into 3 subgroups were trained by two skilled formal health professionals (FHP)at hospital. Trainings were a single session for both groups have been considered. The training duration for each patient in group A (educated by CHVs) was about 2 hours, but the patients in the second group(FHP) taken a 3.5 hours education with half an hour break in mid time. Two months latter they were interviewed again to assess their self-care activities and behaviors.