[The effective educational interventions in the promotion of self-care in people with heart failure: a literature review]

Introduction: Self-care in people with heart failure is subject of recent middle-range and short-range nursing theories and its promotion is recognized as a sensitive nursing outcome, achievable through various strategies including education. Purpose: To identify educational interventions that are effective in the promotion of self-care in adults and elderly people with heart failure, evaluating educational methods and tools used and their effectiveness in the medium-long term period. Method: We conducted a literature review, beginning with a search of secondary studies consulting Cochrane Library and than searching for the most recent primary studies in these scientific databases: PubMed, CINAHL, Scopus, and PsycINFO. Results: The information meeting, focused on cognitive learning method, is the most frequently used and it shows a good and heterogeneous effectiveness in the promotion of self- care. The best statically significant results were obtained from the integration of this method with patients' training and counseling, relating respectively to the psycho-motor and psycho- affective learning. In support of the hetero-directed interventions were useful informational tools, self-monitoring tools and facilitating tools. The education was effective in promoting self-care until 12 months in most of the studies. Conclusions: The selected literature shows that is difficult to identify the best method or educational tool and that a single intervention is often not enough to promote self-care. Heal- thcare providers need to think about education as a continuous and dynamic process that includes multiple sessions and encourages the participation of the patient, turning the meeting into a discussion time where any provided is useful to answer to specific situations through activities and relationships.