Adherence to guidelines in patients with chronic heart failure in primary health care

AbstractObjective: To describe adherence to international guidelines for chronic heart failure (CHF) management concerning diagnostics, pharmacological treatment and self-care behaviour in primary health care.Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study of patients with CHF, using data obtained from medical records and a postal questionnaire.Setting: Three primary health care centres in Sweden.Subjects: Patients with a CHF diagnosis registered in their medical record.Main outcome measures: Adherence to recommended diagnostic tests and pharmacological treatment by the European Society of Cardiology guidelines and self-care behaviour, using the European Heart Failure Self-care Behaviour Scale (EHFScBS-9). Results. The 155 participating patients had a mean age of 79 (SD9) years and 89 (57%) were male. An ECG was performed in all participants, 135 (87%) had their NT-proBNP measured, and 127 (82%) had transthoracic echocardiography performed. An inhibitor of the renin angiotensin system (RAS) was prescribed in ...