Evaluating Teach Back as a Method for Improving Self-Care Behaviours in Heart Failure Patients

Background: Heart Failure (HF) is a common and debilitating disease associated with frequent hospitalizations, decreased quality of life, and requires complex health care regimen. Heart failure management programs promote self-care by teaching patients how to recognize signs and symptoms, how to respond to these symptoms and who to contact for advice. Teaching interventions aimed at self-care have been shown to improve patient outcomes, however, the optimal method of delivering the education is unknown.

Patient education using Teach Back has the potential to increase self-care behaviour in HF patients and reduce adverse clinical outcomes by using plain language, focusing on key points, and asking the patient to verbally recall information just discussed, in an interactive manner. Research has shown Teach Back to be an effective strategy to improve patient comprehension in chronic conditions such as HF and diabetes.

The RNAO Best Practice Guidelines for Self-Management in Chronic Conditions (2010) recommends a nursing communication technique of "Closing the Loop" also known as "Teach Back" to assess patient understanding of information. The level of evidence for this technique is level III (from well designed, non-experimental descriptive studies, such as comparative studies, correlation studies, and case studies). This study will provide additional evidence in a randomized experimental design.

The objectives of this study are to evaluate the effectiveness of Teach Back on self-care (as measured by the European Heart Failure Self-Care Behaviour Scale) and determine if Teach Back affects the number of ER visits and re-admissions post discharge. A secondary objective is to assess if Teach Back technique is a feasible, accepted and sustainable method of discharge teaching for hospitalized HF patients at St. Michael's.

1. Research Question: Does discharge teaching using the Teach Back method from trained nurses improve self-care behaviour in HF patients as measured by the EHFScBS scale as compared to standard care discharge teaching? Hypothesis: Patients who receive teach back discharge teaching will have improved self-care (achieve lower scores on EHFScBS).
2. Research Question: Are there fewer ER visits and hospital admissions post discharge in patients who receive instruction with teach back method? Hypothesis: Patients who receive discharge teaching with Teach Back will have less ER visits and hospital admissions in the 3 months following hospital discharge.
3. Research Question: What is the feasibility and acceptability of adapting Teach Back as standard practice of discharge teaching for heart failure patients in the in-patient cardiac care units at St. Michael's?

Hypothesis: Teach Back is an accepted and sustainable method of discharge teaching in HF patients in the in-patient cardiac care units at St. Michael's as evidenced by participants' feedback (patient questionnaires and nursing focus groups).