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Health Coaching Improves Outcomes of Caregivers of Adults With HF
Quick Takes
- Long-term (i.e., 6-month) outcomes of a virtual health coaching intervention can enhance caregiver self-care and reduce stress attributed to caregiving.
- Poor self-care among caregivers due to demanding caregiving activities and responsibilities can result in a myriad of health risks.
Study Questions:
What is the effect of virtual caregiver support, health coaching intervention on self-care, stress, coping, and perceived mental and physical health status compared with usual care, including receiving health information only?
Methods:
Between 2019 and 2022, investigators randomized participants who provided informal chronic heart failure (HF) caregiving, regardless of the treatment type (i.e., medical, surgical left ventricular assist device or transplant) a minimum of 8 hours per week and had high levels of self-care neglect to the intervention or information only groups. Ten synchronous virtual support sessions provided by trained health coaches over 6 months addressed coping support by encouraging engagement in self-care activities.
Results:
A total of 250 caregivers were enrolled in the randomized controlled trial (RCT). Most caregivers were women (85.2%), White (62.2%), and middle-aged (55.3 ± 13.6 years). Nearly 60% of caregivers were patients’ spouses and cared for their partner 8 hours daily for a median of 3.25 years. Over half of the caregivers reported having no chronic health conditions. No significant baseline difference in caregivers and patients was found. Over the 6-month follow-up, the intervention group had significantly greater improvements in self-care maintenance (5.05 ± 1.99; p = 0.01), stress (-4.50 ± 1.00; p < 0.0001), and mental health status (3.35 ± 1.61; p = 0.04) than the information only comparative group, respectively.
Conclusions:
In this study, the virtual health support coaching intervention improved self-care and stress in informal caregivers of patients with chronic HF.
Perspective:
Findings of this RCT are consistent with those found in the literature, confirming and expanding evidence on the important contributions of informal caregiving in chronic HF.
Clinical Topics: Heart Failure and Cardiomyopathies, Acute Heart Failure, Cardiovascular Care Team, Prevention
Keywords: Caregivers, Heart Failure
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