ASSESSMENT OF HEALTH-RELATED QUALITY OF LIFE IN PATIENTS WITH HEART FAILURE AND REDUCED EJECTION FRACTION TAKING LOW-DOSE SACUBITRIL-VALSARTAN

Abstract

Objective: To examine the impact of administering low-dose sacubitril-valsartan on the quality of health in individuals suffering from heart failure and reduced ejection fraction.Methodology: It is a prospective, cohort study comprising n=77 heart failure patients from a Tertiary Care Hospital with low ejection fraction. An FDA-approved KCCQ questionnaire was used for data collection at admission and after a 6-week follow-up. Descriptive statistics were reported in terms of percentage and mean± Std. dev. For mean comparison paired t-test was used. P value <0.05 was considered statistically significant.Results: Out of 77 patients, 28 (36.4%) were women and 49 (63.6%) were men. The study included participants with an average age of 60.05±11.80 years. Among the participants, 68.8% had hypertension and 51.9% had diabetes. 29.9% of the patients included had an EF of 30%, 49.3% had it between 31-39%, and 20.8% had an EF of 40%. Regarding classification by New York Heart Association (NYHA), before initiating Sacubitril/Valsartan, around 84.4% of patients were categorized as class 3, while 15.6% as class 4. Six weeks after therapy 79.2% of patients improved to functional class 2 and 20.8% to class 3. Statistical analysis revealed a significant differencein Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire (KCCQ) scores of heart failure patients when comparing scores prior to and after receiving treatment of sacubitril/valsartan, 24/26mg BID.Conclusion: The study showed that patients with heart failure having a low ejection fraction experienced an improvement in quality of life as judged by KCCQ scores even while using sacubitril-valsartan at a low dose.