AWARENESS OF HEART FAILURE AMONG PATIENTS ATTENDING CARDIOLOGY CLINIC OF A TERTIARY CENTRE IN IBADAN, SOUTH WESTERN NIGERIA.

Background: Despite the rise in the burden of heart failure (HF), there seems to be poor level of awareness concerning the syndrome particularly in the lowand middle-income countries. This study sought to determine the level of awareness of HF among patients attending cardiology clinic in a big tertiary institution in South Western Nigeria.

Methods: Patients attending the Cardiology clinic at University College Hospital, Ibadan were recruited. A structured questionnaire was used to assess their level of awareness of HF. Normally distributed continuous variables were summarised as means and standard deviations. Categorical variables were expressed as frequencies and percentages. The statistical analysis was done using SPSS, Windows version 23.0 (Armonk, NY: IBM Corp).

Results: Majority of the participants were females (55.2%) with mean age of 56.4years. Most patients (54.0%) were educated to tertiary level, lived in urban area (96.4%) and had hypertension (88.0%). The overall knowledge of the course of HF was not optimal, however, most patients have heard about HF before the study and are aware of common aetiologies and symptoms of HF. There was mixed performance with the knowledge of treatment of HF with many misconceptions. The most preferred source for information was the clinic (99.4%). Others included the internet (83.0%), and patient guides (67.6%).

Conclusion: This study highlighted the gap and the need for educational interventions to address misconceptions and improve patients & knowledge about HF.