Abstract

There are almost 6.9 million people in the United States living with heart failure and about 800,000 of these people are hospitalized each year. Heart failure has an economic burden of $43.6 billion. Heart failure is among the top 10 causes of hospitalizations and about 1 in 5 of patients are readmitted within 30 days of being discharged from the hospital. Hospitals are penalized when Medicare patients with the diagnosis of heart failure return to the hospital withing 30 days of discharge. Following a low sodium diet is part of the treatment plan to manage heart failure.

Problem: When patients with heart failure do not follow a low sodium diet, this causes fluid retention leading to shortness of breath, fatigue, and swelling of their legs. Research shows that there are many reasons that patients do not or are not able to follow a low sodium diet.

Intervention: Using the Burden scale In Restricted Diets (BIRD) questionnaire on patients with heart failure can help their medical team understand their needs and individualize their treatment plan. The BIRD questionnaire was completed over two weeks in a hospital Cardiac Unit using a Likert scale to address the amount of burden they had following a low sodium diet to determine if a dietary consult is needed to decrease 30-day readmission rates.

Results: Seven questionnaires were completed during this two-week period. There was a decrease in the percentage of patients readmitted the following month after the intervention from 9.5% to 3.4%.

Conclusion: Further study should be conducted using more patients over a greater amount of time to have more evidence in the outcomes of the intervention.

Melissa Ernesti

Author Details

Melissa Ernesti, DNP

Sigma Membership

Tau Tau

Lead Author Affiliation

Nebraska Methodist College, Omaha, Nebraska, USA

Type

DNP Capstone Project

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Descriptive/Correlational

Research Approach

Other

Keywords:

Heart Failure, Low Sodium Diets, 30-Day Readmissions, Diet Non-Adherence

Advisor

Hall, Lyndsi

Degree

DNP

Degree Grantor

Nebraska Methodist College

Degree Year

2022

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

Faculty Approved: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Self-submission

Full Text of Presentation

wf_yes

Download

Share

COinS