Nurse-led telephone interventions for people with cardiac disease: A review of the research literature

Background: Nurse-led telephone follow-up offers a relatively inexpensive method of delivering education and support for assisting recovery in the early discharge period; however, its efficacy is yet to be determined. 

Aim: To perform a critical integrative review of the research literature addressing the effectiveness of nurse-led telephone interventions for people with coronary heart disease (CHD). 

Methods: A literature search of five health care databases; Sciencedirect, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Pubmed, Proquest and Medline to identify journal articles between 1980 and 2009. People with cardiac disease were considered for inclusion in this review. The search yielded 128 papers, of which 24 met the inclusion criteria. 

Results: A total of 8330 participants from 24 studies were included in the final review. Seven studies demonstrated statistically significant differences in all outcomes measured, used two group experimental research design and valid and reliable instruments. Some positive effects were detected in eight studies in regards to nurse-led telephone interventions for people with cardiac disease and no differences were detected in nine studies. 

Discussion: Studies with some positive effects generally had stronger research designs, large samples, used valid and reliable instruments and extensive nurse-led educative interventions. 

Conclusion: The results suggest that people with cardiac disease showed some benefits from nurse-led/delivered telephone interventions. More rigorous research into this area is needed.