Recruiting

Text Messaging

Sponsor:

University of Illinois at Chicago

Code:

NCT06473532

Conditions

Heart Failure

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 50+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

TEXT4HF

Study Details

Brief summary:

The goal of this study is to determine whether an individually tailored text messaging intervention can improve self-care in older adult patients with heart failure. The main question it aims to answer are:

  • Is a tailored text messaging intervention feasible and acceptable among older adult patients with heart failure?
  • Does tailored text messaging improve self-care in adult patients with heart failure?

Participants will be randomly assigned to one of two groups for 12 weeks: 1) intervention (text messaging); or 2) control group. Both groups will receive usual care, which includes regular follow-up visits at the heart failure clinic (standard care), plus a "Discharge Packet for Patients Diagnosed with Heart Failure", developed by the American Heart Association. Both groups will be asked via text messages and/or telephone calls to complete questionnaires at baseline/start, 4 weeks and 12 weeks, about self-care, quality of life, health beliefs, medications, diet, etc.

Participants assigned to the intervention group will also receive approximately 5 text messages/week targeting medication adherence, heart-healthy diet, and self-monitoring for 12 weeks.

Conditions

Heart Failure

Study ID

NCT06473532

Start date

Sep 26, 2024

Status verified date

Sep, 2025

Completion date

Jun 30, 2026

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Dec 30, 2025

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 50+

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Inclusion Criteria:

  • ≥50 years of Age
  • HF Stage C, NYHA Class I-IV and on a loop diuretic
  • Own a Mobile phone with Text message plan
  • Ability to speak and read English
  • Suboptimal HF self-care. (SCHFI Score of 3 or less in at least 2 items of any subscale: Self-care maintenance, Symptom Perception, or Self-management)

Exclusion Criteria:

  • SAVR/TAVR or Ventricular Assist Device, or Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy (CRT) - implantation, and/or heart transplantation (HTx) scheduled within the next 3 months
  • Coronary revascularization, and/or CRT-implantation within the last 30 days (EMR Review)
  • Psychosis
  • Hospice or End-of-life care
  • Advanced Renal disease (i.e., estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate <25 or Hemodialysis)
  • Cognitive impairment (i.e., Dementia, Alzheimer's)
  • Unable to self-manage (take medication, bathe, use the toilet, etc.)
  • Currently living in a nursing home

Study Design

Enrollment

30 participants

Anticipated

Allocation

Randomized

Intervention Model

Parallel Assignment

Primary purpose

Treatment

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: TEXT4HF

In addition to usual care and a standard AHA information packet for patients with HF, participants in the intervention group will receive 5 tailored TMs/week for 12 weeks, targeting health beliefs about medication adherence, heart-healthy diet, self-monitoring, and heart failure knowledge.

no intervention: Control Group

The control group will receive standard HF medical care, which includes nurse-led patient education about HF self-care before and/or after discharge as well as follow-up visits at the Outpatient Heart Failure Clinic at UIH post-hospital discharge and several times per year or more, depending on the severity of the patient's condition. Participants will also receive the AHA information packet for patients with HF.

Interventions

TEXT4HF

In addition to usual care, participants in the intervention group will receive 5 TMs/week for 12 weeks at a time of their preference. Tailoring of the TMs is performed based on participants' responses to validated questionnaires (health beliefs scales, HF-knowledge scale, and self-efficacy about HF self-care scale), administered at baseline and 4 weeks. They will also receive an AHA HF discharge informational packet.

Primary outcome measure

  • Change in Self-Care Maintenance [ Time Frame: Baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks ]
  • Change in Self-care Symptom Perception [ Time Frame: Baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks ]
  • Change in Self-care self-management [ Time Frame: Baseline, 4 weeks, 12 weeks ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Jonathan W Leigh, MPH, MSHI

312-355-3261leighj@uic.edu

Spyros Kitsiou, PhD

skitsiou@uic.edu

Locations

University of Illinois, Chicago

Recruiting

Chicago, Illinois, United States, 60612

Contacts

Jonathan W Leigh, MPH, MSHI

312-355-3261leighj@uic.edu

Spyros Kitsiou, PhD

312-355-3519skitsiou@uic.edu

Principal Investigator:

Jonathan W Leigh, MPH, MSHI

More Information

Sponsor

University of Illinois at Chicago

Last update posted

Sep 11, 2025

Last verified

Sep, 2025

Keywords

  • Heart Failure
  • mHealth
  • Text Messaging
  • Mobile Phone

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-09. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by University of Illinois at Chicago on 2025-09-11.