| |
In the 1990s, heart failure emerged as a significant public
health threat and reached epidemic proportions. Despite
advances in medical treatment of heart failure, the
prognosis of patients with heart failure remains poor. Poor
self-management such as failure to follow a sodium
restricted diet is the main predictor of rehospitalization
for an acute exacerbation in heart failure patients and
non-adherence to a sodium restricted diet remains high.
Numerous self-management education interventions have
focused on improving knowledge about the sodium restricted
diet (SRD) with limited success. A major unaddressed issue
is teaching patients to follow a low sodium diet by helping
them learn to easily monitor their salt intake, and helping
them cope with the perception of poor palatability of low
sodium foods. It is possible to “retrain” the taste buds to
enjoy low salt foods by gradually reducing the amount of
sodium in foods over the course of two months.
The Sodium Watcher Program (SWaP) proposed in this study
is designed to improve adherence to SRD in patients with
heart failure using education about monitoring and gradual
progressive adaptation to low sodium food using a unique
electronic sodium monitoring device that easily assesses the
sodium content in food. The purpose of this 2-group
randomized controlled repeated measures (baseline, 2-month,
and 4-month) study is to examine effects of SWaP on
patients’ adherence to SRD and symptom distress. A total of
60 patients with heart failure who are non-adherent to SRD
(as determined by assessment of 24-hour urinary sodium
excretion > 3000mg during baseline) will be randomly
assigned to one of two groups: 1) SWaP intervention (two
60-minute home visits followed by four weekly 15-minute phone
calls) group, or 2) a usual care control group. Participants
will complete questionnaires (self-reported adherence, and
symptom distress) and 24-hour urine collection at each
assessment. Data will be analyzed using repeated measured
ANOVA. The result of this pilot study will provide
preliminary data for a proposal that will be submitted to NIH (R01) and other highly competitive national grants.
|
|
Top |
