Objective To establish health promotion plan based on Predisposing, Reinforcing, and Enabling Causesin Educational Diagnosis and Evaluation (PRECEDE) model for patients with chronic heart failure, and to observe the effects of PRECEDE on the self-care ability, so as to explore the feasibility of the health education based on PRECEDE model. Methods From March 2014 to February 2015, a total of 62 patients with chronic heart failure from the geriatrics department and cardiovascular department of a Class Ⅲ Grade A hospital were selected and divided into intervention group and control group, with 31 cases in each. The patients in the control group received routine heart failure treatment and nursing intervention. On the basis of the control group, the patients in the intervention group received health promotion plan based on PRECEDE model for 3 months. European Heart Failure Self-care Behavior Scale 9 (EHFScBS-9) was applied to compare the self-care scores between the two groups. Results There was no statistical difference before intervention in the total score of EHFScBS-9 between the two groups (t=0.000, P=1.000). The total score of EHFScBS-9 of the intervention group was lower than that of the control group after intervention and 3 months after (t=4.971, 9.156; P<0.001). The results of repeated measurement variance analysis showed that there were time,intergroup, time and group interaction effects between EHFSCBS-9 groups (F=34.489, 40.685, 16.922; P<0.001). Conclusions The health promotion plan based on PRECEDE model is effective and feasible, which can improve the self-care ability of patients with chronic heart failure.