Effect of Personalized Health Coaching Program in Patients With Frailty and Heart Failure: Rationale and Study Design

• Published in: International journal of heart failure Vol. 7; no. 3; pp. 187 - 195
• Main Authors: Yoon, Jihye, Chung, Wook-Jin, Kim, Bo-Hwan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Korea (South) Korean Society of Heart Failure 01.07.2025; 대한심부전학회
• Subjects: Trial Design; 내과학; Heart failure; Frailty; Telenursing; Randomized controlled trial; Quality of life
• ISSN: 2636-154X; 2636-1558; 2636-1558
• DOI: 10.36628/ijhf.2025.0017

Frailty in heart failure (HF) patients contributes to poor outcomes, emphasizing the need for effective management. In many previous studies, frailty interventions have mainly targeted physical frailty or focused community-dwelling patients, neglecting the multidimensional needs of hospitalized individuals. As a frailty for HF patients need to include clinical, functional, psycho-cognitive, and social domains, nurses must assess it holistically and provide personalized support, especially during care transitions. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a nurse-led, personalized health coaching program for hospitalized HF patients with frailty through a randomized controlled trial. This 12-week intervention program targets hospitalized HF patients with frailty. After screening frailty HF patients using validated tools such as Fried's phenotype, Tilburg Frailty Indicator, participants will be randomly assigned to either an intervention or control group. The intervention group will receive personalized health services, including pre-discharge education and weekly telephone coaching, addressing clinical, functional, psycho-cognitive, and social frailty domains. Psychiatric support and community integration program will be provided as needed. The control group will receive standard care. Frailty, quality of life (QoL), and clinical outcomes will be measured at baseline, 12 weeks, and 24 weeks. The primary outcomes will be improvements in frailty and QoL. Frailty will be measured both multidimensional and each of the 4 domains of frailty for HF patients. This study will clarify the role of multidimensional personalized interventions in addressing adverse outcomes related to frailty in patients with HF, thereby providing evidence of their necessity in its management.