The effect of using Orem's model of self-care on recovery of patients with heart failure

BACKGROUND: Using care models provide a common method between teachers, students and nurses, which brings together education, services and research. Orem's model of self-care has been widely studied and is globally applied in the modern nursing. This study is aimed to determine efficiency of Orem's model of self-care in the recovery of patients with heart failure. METHODS: This is a semi-experimental study and a clinical trial. Study population included all patients with heart failure (class I and II) who referred to medical centers of hospitals administered by Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Patients were randomly divided into two groups and both groups were monitored for 6 months. Data were collected using self-care questionnaire and were analyzed using chi-square and t-test. RESULTS: The findings showed a significant difference between self-care abilities of patients in experiment group after the intervention compared with controls (p < 0.001). Also, the recovery of patients, what they were doing to remove symptoms and their compliance with treatment regimen and the fluids balance of intervention group was better than controls (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION: Treatment of patients with heart failure needs long term control and the patient is the only one who can gradually improve their heart condition. To achieve this situation, the results of this study showed that applying Orem's model of self-care is very effective for patients with heart failure. It resulted in higher scores of self-care, less referral, less hospitalizations and better liquid and electrolyte balance.