gms | German Medical Science

Background: Structured management programmes deliver optimized care in heart failure patients and improve outcome.

Objective: We examined the feasibility of including patients with migration background speaking little or no German in a heart failure management programme.

Methods and Results: After adaption of script material and staff to Turkish language we aimed to recruit 300 Turkish and 300 German (control group) patients within 18 months using the operational basis of a local heart failure management programme for screening, contact and inclusion.

Of 488 and 1,055 eligible Turkish and German patients identified through screening, 165 Turkish (34%) and 335 German (32%) patients consented on participation (p=0.46). General practitioners contributed significantly more of the Turkish (84%) than of the German patients (16%, p<0.001). Contact attempts by programme staff were significantly less successful in Turkish (52%) than in German patients (60%, p=0.005) due to significantly higher rate of missing phone numbers (36% vs 25%), invalid address data (28% vs 7%) and being unreachable by phone more frequently (39% vs 26%, all p<0.001). Consent rate was significantly higher in successfully contacted Turkish (63%) compared to German patients (50%, p<0.001).

Discussion and Implications: The inclusion of Turkish minority patients into a heart failure management programme is feasible with higher consent rate than in Germans. However, effort is high due to inherent logistic adaptions and barriers in identification and contacting of patients. Hence, the integration of ethnic minority patients with language barrier in structured heart failure management programmes is unlikely under current general conditions without regulatory amendments.