Coronary heart disease is one of the most common heart diseases and the leading cause of death in the world, and its effective management requires comprehensive approaches beyond drug treatment. Self-care, as one of the key components in controlling this disease, in the context of social support, especially family support, can help improve the quality of life of patients and reduce repeated hospitalizations. The present study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of a family-centered health program on self-care in patients with coronary heart disease. This quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and three-month follow-up included 30 men with coronary heart disease who were randomly divided into two intervention groups (n=15) and control groups (n=15). The intervention group participated in eight weekly 90-minute sessions of a family-centered educational-support program, while the control group did not receive any educational intervention. The results showed that the family-centered health program significantly increased self-care behaviors in the intervention group compared to the control group, and these changes were maintained for three months after the intervention. These findings emphasize the importance of family participation in improving self-care in heart patients and indicate that family-centered interventions can be effective as a complement to drug treatments in the management of heart disease. The results of the study suggest the need to integrate these approaches into the health system and recommend to policymakers to provide the basis for the systematic implementation of family-centered programs.
