From guideline to practise

Abstract

Heart failure (HF) is a complex disease with poor outcome. This complexity may prevent care providers from covering all aspects of care. This could not only be relevant for individual patient care, but also for care organisation. Disease management programmes (DMP) applying a multidisciplinary approach are recommended to improve HF care. However, there is a scarcity of research considering how DMP perform, in what form they should be offered, and what care and support patients and care providers would benefit most. Therefore, the INTERACT-in-HF study aims to explore the current processes of HF-care and to identify factors that may facilitate and factors that may hamper HF care and guideline adherence. Within a crosssectional mixed method design in three regions of the North-West part of Europe, patients (n=88) and their care providers (n=59) were interviewed. Prior to the semi-structured interviews, patients were asked to complete three questionnaires: The Dutch Heart Failure Knowledge scale, The European Heart Failure Self-care Behaviour Scale, The global health status and social economic status. In parallel, retrospective data based on records from these (n=88) and additional patients (n=82) are reviewed.