Clinical Profile and Short-term Outcome of Heart Failure Patients in a Tertiary Hospital in Kaski, Nepal: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Introduction: Heart failure is one of the leading causes of hospitalization. The aim of this study was to evaluate the epidemio-clinical profile and short-term outcome of hospitalized heart failure patients in a tertiary care hospital. Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at Pokhara Academy of Health Sciences, Kaski, Nepal from October 1, 2021 to January 31, 2022. All the hospitalized heart failure patients aged 18 years or above were included. Relevant history, examination, laboratory, and pertinent findings were noted. Descriptive statistics were used for qualitative and quantitative data. Paired t-test was used for the comparison of pre-and post-hospitalization data. A p-value <0.05 was taken for statistical significance. Results: There were a total of 116 patients (65.5% females) with a mean age of 64.20 ± 16.35 years. Most of them had shortness of breath (97.4%) and orthopnea (72.4%) and presented with pedal/sacral edema (81.9%) and bilateral basal crepitations (69.8%) in the chest. Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction was the most prevalent (61.2%) type and dilated cardiomyopathy (27.6%) was the commonest etiology of heart failure. The median duration of hospitalization was five days and the in-hospital mortality was 2.6%. Loop diuretics and vasodilators (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker) were the most commonly used medications. Conclusions: Dilated cardiomyopathy was the most common etiology and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction was the predominant type of heart failure. With a short length of stay and low in-hospital mortality, the short-term outcome was good.

Keywords

• Clinical profile
• Heart failure
• Hospitalization