Improving community health nurses' knowledge of heart failure education principles: a descriptive study

The number of individuals diagnosed with heart failure continues to increase, often requiring repeated hospitalizations and readmissions. Patient education is essential for patients to self-manage this chronic illness. This study aims to describe nurses' knowledge of heart failure self-management education principles. Sixty-one nurses working in the community completed a 20-item survey, assessing their knowledge of diet, fluids, weight changes, signs and symptoms of worsening condition, medications, and exercise. Correct responses for individual survey items ranged from 14% to 100% with only 2 of 20 questions answered correctly by all participants. Frequently missed questions focused on notification of the physician regarding blood pressure, dizziness, weight monitoring, and use of salt substitutes. Findings of this study appear to suggest that an education and communication intervention may be effective at improving nurses' knowledge of heart failure education principles because more questions were answered correctly by >90% of nurses, following the intervention.