Psychoeducational Intervention for Reducing Heart Failure Patients’ Rehospitalizations and Promoting Their Quality of Life and Posttraumatic Growth at the 1-Year Follow-Up: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract

Objective: This study's aim was to verify whether a psychoeducational intervention, with a brief expressive posttraumatic growth (PTG) component, could reduce heart failure (HF) patients' hospital readmissions and promote their quality of life (QoL) and PTG. Methods: It adopted a parallel randomized clinical trial design, and its participants comprised HF patients from a hospital in Southern Brazil. All the participants completed the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment and Posttraumatic Growth Inventory questionnaires at the pre (T1: baseline) and post (T2) assessments of the intervention. Although patients in the control group (CG) underwent only regular outpatient consultations, those in the intervention group (IG) supplemented their regular consultations, with two additional individual visits to promote health and psychological education. At the 1-year follow-up, hospital readmissions were assessed. Results: Of the 142 patients recruited at baseline (72 and 70 in the CG and IG, respectively), as 19 dropped out at follow-up, only 123 (63 and 60 in the CG and IG, respectively) were reassessed after approximately 378 days. They included 65% men aged 64 (11) years, 58% had low incomes, and 67% had less than high school education. The IG participants' risk of readmission got reduced by 52% ( p = .023), and they also showed significant improvements in their total QoL and positive psychological growth at the 6-month follow-up assessment. Conclusions: The two-session psychoeducational intervention proved to be protective for Southern Brazilian HF patients in the IG, as it effectively reduced their hospital readmission rates by half compared with the CG, as well as improved their QoL and promoted their positive psychological growth. Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT04870918.