[Clinical characteristics and pharmacological treatment of patients with heart failure in a primary health care cohort].

Abstract

Objective: To characterise patients with heart failure (HF) in Primary Health Care (PHC) and describe their socio-demographic and clinical characteristics and pharmacological treatment.

Design: Descriptive cohort study. SITE: Information System for the Development of Research in Primary Care (SIDIAP), which captures information from the electronic health records of PHC of the Catalan Institute of Health (approximately 80% of the Catalan population).

Participants: Adults with an active diagnosis of HF between 2018 and 2022.

Main measurements: Sociodemographic and anthropometric variables, left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF), New York Heart Association (NYHA), laboratory data, comorbidities, exposure to drugs for HF and other pathologies.

Results: 75,769 individuals were included; 22.7% with HF with reduced LVEF (HFrEF), 26.2% with preserved LVEF (HfpEF) and 51.2% with non-specific HF. The HfrEF group consisted mostly of men (59.5%), with a mean age of 74.8 years, and the others of women (58.8% and 54.6%, aged 78.7 and 80.6 years, respectively). LVEF was recorded in 20.3% and NYHA in 43.9% of patients. In terms of treatment, 75.3% of people with HfrEF were receiving renin-angiotensin system (RAS) drugs, 75.9% beta-blockers, 42.1% mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists, 33.6% sodium-glucose cotransporter type 2 inhibitors and 62.8% diuretics. 63% with HfpEF were receiving RAS and 68% diuretics. 61.8% with unspecified HF were receiving RAS and 67.5% diuretics.

Conclusions: We analysed the population with HF in PHC in Catalonia. We highlight a low registry of cardiac function, LVEF and NYHA. The frequency of drug use for HF was different between populations and differed from the recommendations.