The effect of three methods of follow-up (Short Message Service SMS, telephone and regular) on the quality of life in heart failure patients

Modern methods and telemonitoring manage care and control of chronic diseases has improved, meanwhile, the hospital use traditional methods to teach their patients.
Aim: to compare the effectiveness of three methods of follow-up (SMS, telephone and regular follow up) on the quality of life in heart failure patients.
In the randomized clinical trial, , patients with heart failure admitted to Emam Ali and Emam Reza hospitals were selected. The patients or dependent relatives of the patients had used mobile phones and text messages with a written consent participated in the study. With a convenience sampling the patients selected and patients randomly assigned to three groups of SMS, telephone and regular follow-up, respectively. Each patient was assessed before and 1, 2, 3 months after discharge respectively. To collect data, the Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire was used. The data analyezed with software SPSS VER19 by paired t test, repeated measure ANOVA and curves.
Finding: Twenty five patients assigned to each group. there wasn’t statistically significant differences between the quality of life in the telephone follow up before and the first, second and third months, as well as in the regular follow-up (36±12.6, 41.7±14.4, 36.5±13.5 and 36±13.2 respectively) and also there wasn’t significant difference between before discharge and after 3 months in regular follow up (38±17 vs 39.7±17.7). in the follow up via SMS there was a significant difference between the quality of life before and the first, second and third months (49.6±21.5, 43.9±16.6, 39.1±13.8 and 38.4±12.6 respectively).
Because the heart failure patients need different education and follow up, the result of this study showed that SMS follow up can promote the patients’ quality of life, but telephone and usual follow up didn’t change the quality of change in heart failure patients. Hence, follow up by SMS may be considerd in these patients.