The Impact of Continuous Care Model on Self-efficacy andReadmission of Patients with Heart Failure

Background: patients with heart failure (hf) need continuousmedical care, including regular follow-up, training, and informationacquisition to increase self-care capacity. adherence to self-care behaviors reduces patient readmissionobjectives: this study examined the impact of the continuous care model (ccm) on self-efficacy and readmission of patients hospitalized with hf.methods: this quasi-experimental study was conducted on patients with hf visiting two teaching hospitals in southeastern iranin 2021. the participants were 70 patients who were selected using convenience sampling and were placed into two control andintervention groups, each with 35 patients through limited random sampling. the patients in the control group received routinecare, but the ccm was performed for the patients of the intervention group in the form of individual training for 6 sessions in thehospital and after discharge and then through telephone follow-up once a week until the end of the twelfth week. the instrumentsused to collect the data were a demographic information form that assessed patient readmission and their demographic information and sullivan’s cardiac self-efficacy scale. the collected data were analyzed with spss software (version 22) using the chi-squaretest, independent and paired samples t-test, and analysis of covariance at the significance level of p < 0.05.results: analysis of covariance showed that the mean self-efficacy score of the patients with hf was significantly different betweenthe two groups after implementing continuous care (p = 0.001). the results of the independent samples t-test suggested that themean and standard deviation of readmission frequencies in the control group (1.03 ± 1.01) were significantly higher than the meanreadmission frequencies of the patients in the intervention group (0.34 ± 0.68) (p = 0.001).conclusions: given the positive and significant effect of the ccm on increasing patient self-efficacy and reducing the frequency ofreadmissions, and considering the ease, applicability, and low cost of this intervention, relevant authorities need to make effectiveplanning and policies to implement the ccm for patients with hf.