The Effectiveness of Transition Care Interventions from Hospital to Home on Rehospitalization in Older Patients with Heart Failure: An Integrative Review

Heart failure (HF) is one of the common causes of rehospitalization in older people leading to an increase in the number of mortalities, disabilities, and readmission rates. However, there has been a lack of literature reviews on current evidence regarding the effects of transition care interventions (TCI) on rehospitalization before discharge from hospital to home. The current review aims to examine the effectiveness of transition care interventions on rehospitalization within 30-days for older patients with HF. The current review of international knowledge employs the PRISMA guidelines and includes primary studies published between 2011 and 2021 taken from PubMed, CINAHL, PsycINFO, Cochrane, and Scopus. Our review identified 15 relevant studies that together examined 10,701 patients with HF. We found that the effectiveness of TCIs could reduce rehospitalization rates and costs of care. The findings asserted that nurses, pharmacists, and multidisciplinary teams were predominantly provided transition care interventions. In principle, transition care intervention could inform policymakers to develop the current discharge planning practices in older HF patients. Therefore, interdisciplinary healthcare teams and caregivers should develop the transition care interventions with long-term periods before discharge from hospital to their home, particularly for older patients with HF in order to improve their capacity for self-care, quality of care, and promote continuing care.