continuous care model and the self-management in post-myocardial infarction patients: a randomized controlled trial

Background: self-management after myocardial infarction is fundamental to effective medical treatment. objectives: the current study aimed to investigate the effects of applying the continuous care model on self-management of a sample of iranian patients with post-myocardial infarction. methods: sixty hospitalized patients were randomly allocated into control (n = 30) and intervention (n = 30) groups. before the intervention and at the end of it, self-management of both groups was evaluated by chronic disease self-management questionnaire. the continuous care model was performed for the intervention group for three months. the data were analyzed by spss version 16. in addition to descriptive statistical tests, chi-square, the exact fisher, willcoxon and mann-whitney, and analysis of covariance (ancova) tests were used. the significant level was set at p < 0.05. results: there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of sub-dimensions of self-management scores before the intervention (p > 0.05). at the end of the intervention, in all self-management sub-dimensions expect for shortness of breath, the status of intervention group improved significantly more than that of the control group (p < 0.005). moreover, mean of changes in all sub-dimensions of self-management showed no significant difference, but fatigue and health care utilization between the two groups had significant difference. conclusions: the continuous care model can be considered as a useful tool to improve patients’ self-management after myocardial infarction.