The effect of educational intervention based on Pender’s health promotion model on quality of life and health promotion in patients with heart failure: an experimental study

Background: Heart failure is a common and chronic heart condition with high prevalence and mortality rates. This
debilitating disease as an important predictor of health outcomes is directly related to patients’ quality of life. Given
that one of the main goals of heart failure treatment is to promote patients’ quality of life and health status, conducting
effective nursing interventions seems to be necessary in this regard. Therefore, the present study aimed to determine
the effect of educational intervention based on Pender’s health promotion model on quality of life and health
promotion in patients with heart failure.
Methods: This is an experimental study in which a total of 80 patients with heart failure were recruited and randomly
allocated to two groups of intervention and control (n = 40 in each group). The educational program was designed
based on Pender’s health promotion model and then provided for the patients in the intervention four subgroups
(10 person in each group) during six sessions. Data were collected at three time-points of before, immediately after,
and three months after the intervention using a demographic questionnaire, the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure
Questionnaire (MLHFQ), and the Health-Promoting Lifestyle Profile II (HPLP-II). Data were then analyzed using SPSS
Statistics for Windows, version 17.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, Ill., USA) and p value less than 0.05 was taken as statistically
significant.
Results: Based on the results of the present study, no statistically significant difference was shown in terms of
demographic characteristics between the two groups. It was also indicated that there was a statistically significant
difference in the mean scores of all dimensions of quality of life (except in the physical dimension) between the two
groups so that the overall mean score of quality of life increased significantly in the intervention group after the intervention
(p < .05). Moreover, there were significant increases in the mean scores of health-promoting behaviors (except
in the domain of physical activity) in the intervention group compared to the control group (p < .05) after intervention.
Conclusions: This study demonstrates a trend that Pender’s health promotion model is effective in improving the
quality of life of patients with heart failure except of the physical dimension, and strengthening their health-promoting
behaviors in all dimensions except of the physical activity dimension.