Grant: Knowledge Synthesis Grant

For this project we will review research into the needs that heart failure patients and their family caregivers report having and then work to incorporate these insights better into practice and policy for health professionals. Heart failure is one of the most costly health conditions in Canada. It also very severely harms people's quality of life and life expectancy. Heart failure can be managed with medications and various health behaviours that can improve this life quality and anticipated length. However, people often have great difficulty managing their heart failure well. The research to be reviewed will be qualitative - based mostly on actual interviews with patients and ther caregivers about how they manage the heart failure and what their main needs are in relation to this. We will search for all existing qualitative studies published on patients with heart failure and / or their caregivers after 1995. Using an established approach, we will identify studies that have data on self care needs and synthesise findings from these studies to identify the main self care needs of patients and caregivers. Knowing this will help draw on this existing research better and should provide health professionals with more insight into how they can help patients and caregivers better. We will then work to inform key decision-makers and practitioners about the findings - these people will be encouraged to share information on the findings with their colleagues. We will also link to influential committees involved in making recommendations for care and eduacators - and encourage them to use the findings in their fields. Finally, we will develop some patient support materials including leaflects and web-based content to provide direct support to patients and caregivers.