Improving Care and Mental Well-Being for Adults With Heart Failure

Summary

Heart failure is a high-risk, chronic condition that impacts patients' mental health. Approximately 50% of heart failure patients experience comorbid mental health conditions, such as stress, depression and anxiety, which affect their day-to-day lives. Despite this interconnection, the integration of mental health awareness and support into cardiac care remains limited. To address this gap, the FRAME (Foundation, Recognition, Awareness, Management, Engagement) intervention was co-designed by researchers, healthcare providers, health system decisionmakers, and patient partners. This pilot study evaluates the feasibility of implementing the FRAME intervention in pilot clinical sites within two health regions in Ontario, Canada, including team-based family medicine clinics, cardiac rehabilitation/specialist clinics, and emergency departments. Utilizing a pretest-posttest hybrid 1 model intervention design, this study evaluates process indicators and patient-focused outcomes through surveys and semi-structured qualitative interviews. Findings from this study will inform a future large scale cohort study and scalable integration of the FRAME tool into existing cardiac care pathways to enhance mental health awareness and support among heart failure patients.

Conditions

• Heart Failure
• Mental Health
• Stress
• Anxiety
• Depression

Interventions

OTHER

Heart Failure and Mental Health Intervention (FRAME)

Foundation, Recognition, Awareness, Management and Engagement (FRAME) is a multi-component, co-designed web tool created in collaboration with patient partners, caregivers, healthcare providers, and Archipel and Great River Ontario Health Teams. It is designed to improve recognition, awareness, management and support for mental health in patients with heart failure. There are three different versions: one for healthcare providers, one for caregivers and one for patients. The intervention includes educational material about heart failure and mental health, conversational support to help facilitate discussions about mental health, self-management activity maps (e.g., tips about nutrition and exercise), asset maps (i.e., displaying available resources), and the provider-facing discussion tool to help initiate conversations about mental health and guide referrals or supports. FRAME was developed through a co-design process informed by the lived experiences of community partners.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

  collaborator OTHER_GOV

• Bruyère Health Research Institute.

  lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation

NA

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age

40 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2025-09-26

Primary Completion

2026-11-30

Completion

2026-11-30

Countries

• Canada

Study Locations