Effects of Health Education Program and Improving Self-care among Vietnamese Adult Patients with Chronic Heart Failure in Nam Dinh Province Vietnam

This study aimed toimprove the knowledge and practice of self-care among Vietnamese adult patients with chronic heart failure in Nam Dinh province Vietnam. The one group pre-test and post-test educational intervention was conducted among 90patients with chronic heart failurein Nam Dinh General Hospital. The education programme based on the guidelines for self-care of heart failure by Vietnam National Heart Association 2015 and by American Heart Association2014. The evaluation knowledge and practice before and after based on the Atlanta Heart Failure Knowledge Testand the Self-care of Heart Failure Index. By the scale of 22 points for self-care knowledge, the mean score of participated patients before the intervention was 10.41 ± 3.54, then went up to 19.38 ± 2.16 points right after completing the intervention and retained at 17.92 ± 2.52 points at the time of one month later (p values of 0.001).By the scale of 100 points for each field of self-care practice,the mean scores of participated patientsbefore the intervention were limited in three fields of practicewith41.52 ± 20.51 points for self-care maintenance, 35.56 ± 15.21 points for self-care management, and 50.45 ± 16.11 for self-care self-confidence, thenpositive changes in comparison with these three fields before the interventionwere seen after completing the interventionone month,including 53.90 ± 20.03 points, 52.96 ± 15.08 points, and 59.31 ± 14.68, respectively(p values of 0.001).The study revealed a reality of limited self-care knowledge and practice among Vietnamese adult patients with chronic heart failure before the intervention and showed the initial positive results in improvingboth knowledge and practice of patients with chronic heart failure through the patient educationwhich helping themto do self-caring theirconditionand needs to be implemented regularly.