Therapeutic education in patients with heart failure

Heart failure (HF) is a misunderstood disease, both common and serious. Because of its high rate of preventable hospitalizations through daily monitoring of simple clinical parameters and due to the change in lifestyle it imposes, HF is a key target of therapeutic patient education (TPE). In this condition, TPE has shown, according to the latest published multicenter studies, an effect in reducing hospitalizations and even on reducing mortality with a cost/benefit largely comparable to-or exceeding-that of many validated therapeutics. However, TPE is only proposed to a very marginal percentage of patients who may benefit from it. The weak implementation of a "therapeutic" education in spite of a strong level of evidence and albeit recommended by scientific societies is due to several difficulties affecting both patients and caregivers and to institutional choice.