Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Heart failure (HF) is the most common and costly disease for seniors in Canada. It weakens the heart and has deteriorating effects on patients' breathing, sleep, ability to work, and mental health. It requires frequent hospitalization, which increases suffering and expense. Heart Failure Disease Management Interventions (HFDMIs) are health services that help patients in taking better care of themselves in order to prevent from worsening of symptoms, leading to less frequent hospital admissions , reduced suffering and cost. These services consist of different components such as educating and following up with patients around medicines, diet, exercise, and symptoms; providing support; and improving access to care. HFDMIs are sometimes provided face-to-face during hospital stay, while sometimes these are provided via tele-health (through web, email and smart phone Apps) at home. At times, these are delivered by individual health professionals such as nurses or doctors or physiotherapists, or sometimes by combined teams of various health professionals. As HFDMIs are diverse in the way these are performed; therefore, it requires a sophisticated statistical analysis to compare the various HFDMIs. We will search for, and analyze data from the randomized trials of HFDMIs, published after 1994. This would be the largest and the most specific literature synthesis, which will identify the fine details around HFDMIs and the context in which these are more or less effective. Such as the HFDMIs that are more effective, using a specific mode of communication (in-person or tele-health), in a specific setting (home, hospital, general practice clinic), delivered by a specific or diverse group of health professionals. This will also be the first ever synthesis to identify the effect of patients' sex on the effectiveness of various parts of the HFDMIs. The findings will guide health professionals and policy makers to design and implement the specifically useful HFDMI components.