The feasibility of a telephone coaching program on heart failure home management for family caregivers.

OBJECTIVES: To test the feasibility of delivery and evaluate the helpfulness of a coaching heart failure (HF) home management program for family caregivers.
BACKGROUND: The few available studies on providing instruction for family caregivers are limited in content for managing HF home care and guidance for program implementation.
METHOD: This pilot study employed a mixed methods design. The measures of caregiver burden, confidence, and preparedness were compared at baseline and 3 months post-intervention. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize program costs and demographic data. Content analysis research methods were used to evaluate program feasibility and helpfulness.
RESULTS: Caregiver (n = 10) burden scores were significantly reduced and raw scores of confidence and preparedness for HF home management improved 3 months after the intervention. Content analyses of nurse and caregiver post-intervention data found caregivers rated the program as helpful and described how they initiated HF management skills based on the program.
CONCLUSIONS: The program was feasible to implement. These results suggest the coaching program should be further tested with a larger sample size to evaluate its efficacy.