There was evidence to suggest that education can improve HRQoL and decrease healthcare costs by reductions in downstream healthcare utilization .
Conclusions : Our review had insufficient power to exclude clinical ly important effects of education on mortality and morbidity .
Background : To assess the effects of patient education on mortality , morbidity , health-related quality of life ( HRQoL ) , and healthcare costs in people with coronary heart disease ( CHD ) .
Does a telephone follow-up intervention for patients discharged with acute myocardial infarction have long-term effects on health-related quality of life? A randomised controlled trial.
AIMS An earlier combined proactive and reactive telephone follow-up intervention for acute myocardial infa rct ion patients after discharge from hospital showed positive effects after six months . The aim of the present study was to assess whether the intervention has long-term effects up to 18 months after discharge . DESIGN A prospect i ve r and omised controlled trial with 18 months follow-up . METHOD The trial was conducted with 288 patients allocated to a telephone follow-up intervention group ( n = 156 ) or control group ( n = 132 ) . The primary endpoint was health-related quality of life using the SF-36 . Secondary endpoints included smoking and exercise habits , return to work and rehospitalisation due to chest pain . RESULTS There were significant improvements over time on most dimensions of health-related quality of life in both the intervention and control group to US norm population levels on most SF-36 dimensions and summary scores . The intervention group showed no overall significant improvement beyond six months in the physical or mental summary scores , but there was a significant effect for those aged 70 or above . Although there was a promising effect for rehospitalisation due to chest pain , no significant differences were found between the groups on the secondary endpoints after six months . CONCLUSION This study demonstrated that despite positive short-term effects at six months , the telephone follow-up intervention had no long-term effects on health-related quality of life or secondary endpoints . However , the potential for improvement beyond six months was less than anticipated reflecting a reduced morbidity among acute myocardial infa rct ion patients . RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Telephone follow-up after discharge from hospital is an easy implementable follow-up intervention enabling individualised provision of information and support in a time often experienced as stressful by patients . Our study indicates that six months is an adequate support period . Despite positive results six months after discharge no significant added long-term effects of telephone follow-up , compared to usual care were found in this study
There was evidence to suggest that education can improve HRQoL and decrease healthcare costs by reductions in downstream healthcare utilization .
Conclusions : Our review had insufficient power to exclude clinical ly important effects of education on mortality and morbidity .
Background : To assess the effects of patient education on mortality , morbidity , health-related quality of life ( HRQoL ) , and healthcare costs in people with coronary heart disease ( CHD ) .