Investigating the Effect of Stress Management Skills Training On Perceived Stress of Family Caregivers of Patients with Heart Failure: A Semi-Experimental Study

Introduction and Objectives: Heart failure affects not only patients’ lives but also caregivers who are considered as the most important source of care for patients and the health care system. Perceived stress, especially during exacerbations period of disease increased. Furthermore, training the stress management skills increases the ability of individuals to reduce stress and adapt to stressful situations; so this study is conducted with the purpose of determining the effect of training stress management skills on perceived stress of family caregivers of patients with heart failure.

Materials and methods: This semi-experimental study (before and after) was conducted on 30 patients with congestive heart failure. The sampling was done by access method. Patients were classified into intervention and control groups. Data were collected using Kuhn’s Perceived Stress Questionnaire completed before and after the intervention. Data were analyzed by SPSS software version 21.

Results: The results of the statistical tests showed that there was no significant relationship between the two groups before intervention, but after the intervention, the mean score of perceived stress in the intervention group decreased from 38.46 to 21.53.In the control group, this mean was changed from 37.20 to 35.00, and these changes in the intervention group were statistically significant (p=0.001).

Conclusion: the training of stress management skills can be effective through improving self-management ability to reduce perceived stress in caregivers of patients with heart failure. Therefore, it is recommended that this training be considered by the authorities in educational centers.