ArticleEClinicalMedicine2024
Effects of the family customised online FOCUS programme on patients with heart failure and their informal caregivers: a multicentre, single-blind, randomised clinical trial.
Article in EClinicalMedicine, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 7 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interventions for reducing caregiver burden in chronic dyspnea: a meta-analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2025Pooled it
- Article
- Dyadic Health Literacy and Its Association with Care Collaboration and Satisfaction in Heart Failure Patient-Caregiver Dyads: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2026Article
- Personalizing Care for Informal Heart Failure Caregivers: Challenges and Practical Implications.Current heart failure reports · 2025Review
- A quasi-experimental study on couple-based exercise program improving cardiac rehabilitation exercise compliance in post-PCI patients.BMC cardiovascular disorders · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Living with heart failure can severely affect the physical and mental health of patients with heart failure and their caregivers. Available dyadic self-care interventions for heart failure are scarce, especially in China. We aimed to develop and test the family FOCUS programme. Methods: This single-blind, randomised, controlled study was conducted at four hospitals in Tianjin, China. Patients with heart failure (aged at least 18 years) and their caregiver (dyads) were randomly assigned to either the intervention (n = 71) or control (n = 71) group in a 1:1 ratio. The primary outcomes of this study were patient self-care, with three specific dimensions (self-care maintenance, symptom perception, and self-care management), and caregiver contribution to self-care, mirroring these three dimensions. The outcomes were assessed at baseline (T0) and 4 (T1), 12 (T2), and 24 (T3) weeks post-discharge, respectively. This work is registered on ChiCTR, ChiCTR2100053168. Findings: Between May 20, 2022, and September 30, 2022, 142 dyads with heart failure were enrolled. The intervention group exhibited dropout rates of 6%, 8.5%, and 18.3% at 4, 12, and 24 weeks after discharge, while the control group showed 9.9%, 12.3%, and 25.4%. Compared with the control group, patients in the intervention group reported improved self-care maintenance (β: 8.5, 95% CI: 0.7, 16.4) and management (β: 7.2, 95% CI: 0.1, 14.3) at T1, as well as improved symptom perception at both T1 (β: 9.7, 95% CI: 1.5, 17.9) and T2 (β: 9.6, 95% CI: 0.6, 18.6). Furthermore, caregiver contributions to self-care maintenance, self-care management, and symptom perception (excluding T3) exhibited significant improvements at all timepoints. Interpretation: Although the significant improvements in patients' self-care were not long-lasting, this study suggested that the family FOCUS programme consistently enhanced caregivers' contributions to self-care. Future work could explore the effect of the family FOCUS programme on families with multiple chronic conditions. Funding: The National Natural Science Foundation of China.
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