Nonpharmacological interventions to improve quality of life in heart failure: an integrative review.

Objective:: to identify articles that assessed the effectiveness or efficacy of nonpharmacological interventions to improve quality of life of people with heart failure in the literature.

Method:: an integrative literature review was performed in Lilacs, MedLine and SciELO databases, including randomized or nonrandomized clinical trials and quasi-experimental studies published between 2003 and 2014, in Portuguese, English or Spanish.

Results:: twenty-three studies were included. The categories of nonpharmacological interventions that improved quality of life of people with heart failure were: Remote health monitoring, Instructions on health practices, Physical activity follow-up and Traditional Chinese Medicine practices.

Conclusion:: these results can guide the selection of interventions to be implemented by health professionals that treat people with heart failure. Future systematic reviews with meta-analyses are needed in order to identify the most effective interventions for improving these individuals' quality of life.