Baghaie Rahim, Mashallahi Alireza, Naderi Jaleh and Rashidi Ali
Introduction: Hospital readmission leads to increased care cost and decreased quality of patients’ life. This study aimed to determine the role of continuous care model (CCM) on hospital readmission among patients with heart failure (HF) in North West of Iran. Methods: This randomized controlled clinical trial was performed on 60 HF patients admitted to Urmia University hospitals, Urmia, Iran in 2014. Participants were randomly allocated into two groups of intervention and control (30 patients in each) using randomization software. While the control group received routine hospital care, CCM was run in the intervention group during 3 months. Data were collected by questionnaire (demographic information, checklist related to readmission and questions to evaluate the treatment continuity and patients' care after hospital discharge). Readmission rates were measured and compared using descriptive and analytical statistics with SPSS version 19. Results: The mean readmission rate in both groups was approximately equal to 1.5 within three months prior to the intervention. After the intervention, the average number of readmissions greatly decreased in the intervention group from 1.53 times to 0.46, while in the control group, it increased from 1.46 to 1.76 with a significant difference between two groups (p=0.001). Conclusion: Our results confirmed that the application of CCM could significantly reduce the readmission rates in HF patients and thus lead to decrease care cost and increase the quality of life in patients' with HF.
