A study to evaluate the feasibility of a nurse-led follow-up clinic among postmyocardial infarction patients attending the Cardiology Outpatient Department at CN Centre, AIIMS, New Delhi

Abstract

Introduction: Nurse-led clinics are a model of care indicated where there are service gaps due to high demand or workforce shortages. Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a nurse-led follow-up clinic among postmyocardial infarction (MI) patients by inter-rater agreement of selected clinical variables with cardiologist clinic and to assess the satisfaction among post-MI patients related to assessment and recommendations done in a nurse-led follow-up clinic. Materials and Methods: Quasi-experimental evaluation design – only posttest using a comparison group was used. Convenience sampling was done. From three follow-up clinics, 79 participants were included, and the interventions were post-MI patients' assessment, documentation, and recommendations, which were done in both nurse-led and cardiologist follow-up clinics using post-MI clinical pro forma. Results: The overall inter-rater agreement ranges from 87.34% to 99.8%. The kappa score obtained was found to be highly significant (P = 0.0001). 86% of patients were highly satisfied and only 14% were moderately satisfied, and the total mean score was 34.47 ± 6.15. Conclusion: The nurse-led clinic was feasible among post-MI patients after proper training of nurse.

Keywords

• Inter-rater agreement
• nurse-led follow-up clinic
• patient satisfaction
• postmyocardial infarction follow-up
• selected clinical variables