Development of a Nostalgic Remembering Intervention: Feeling Safe in Dyads Receiving Palliative Care for Advanced Heart Failure

Dyads receiving palliative care for advanced heart failure are at risk for the loss of feeling safe, experienced as a fractured sense of coherence, discontinuity in sense of self and relationships, and strained social connections and altered roles. However, few theory-based interventions have addressed feeling safe in this vulnerable population. PURPOSE: The purpose of this article is to describe the development of the Nostalgic Remembering Intervention to strengthen feeling safe and promote adaptive physiological and psychological regulation in dyads receiving palliative care for heart failure. CONCLUSIONS: Systematic intervention development is essential to understand what, for whom, why, and how an intervention works in producing outcomes. Program theory provided a systematic approach to the development of the Nostalgic Remembering Intervention, including conceptualization of the problem targeted by the intervention, specification of critical inputs and conditions that operationalize the intervention, and understanding the mediating processes leading to expected outcomes. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Creating a foundation for cardiovascular nursing research and practice requires continued, systematic development of theory-based interventions to best meet the needs of dyads receiving palliative care for heart failure. The development of the Nostalgic Remembering Intervention to strengthen feeling safe in dyads provides a novel and relevant approach.