A randomized controlled trial evaluating self-care among three groups of patients with heart failure educated by health educators, by volunteers and a control group

INTERVENTION: The intervention included two stages, first training nine female volunteers by a skilled general practitioner in a few workshops. The duration and number of workshops are depended on situation and necessity realized in the first session by obtaining feedback from participants. The materials obtained from heart failure text books and related sites such as (http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/)translated into a simple language under supervision a cardiologist, was used and provided slides of PowerPoint and pamphlets taught in workshops. Second step was performing educational program for two groups of patients with CHF randomly been allocated into group A or B. The group A was trained face to face at their homes by trained community health volunteers (CHVs) and second group divided into 3 subgroups were trained by two skilled formal health professionals (FHP)at hospital. Trainings were a single session for both groups have been considered. The training duration for each patient in group A (educated by CHVs) was about 2 hours, but the patients in the second group(FHP) taken a 3.5 hours education with half an hour break in mid time. Two months latter they were interviewed again to assess their self‐care activities and behaviors. CONDITION: Heart Failure Public Health PRIMARY OUTCOME: self‐care scales (self‐care maintenance, self‐care management and self‐care confidence) are the outcome that are measured using pSCHFI.The pSCHFI is comprised of three scales with 22 questions containing 10 questions for self‐maintenance, 6 for self‐management and 6 for self‐confidence. Each scale is standardized to a possible score of zero to 100(using likert scale) SECONDARY OUTCOME: nil INCLUSION CRITERIA: over 18 year diagnosed by heart failure signing consent form lack of mental disorder