Quality of life is impaired similarly in heart failure patients with preserved and reduced ejection fraction

Aims To compare quality of life (QoL) in heart failure (HF) patients with preserved ejection fraction (HF-PEF) and HF patients with reduced ejection fraction (HF-REF) in a well-defined HF population.

Methods and results Patients with HF-PEF [left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) >= 40%] were matched by age and gender to patients with HF-REF (LVEF,40%). In the current study, we only included HF patients with a B-type natriuretic peptide level (BNP) > 100 pg/mL. Quality of life was assessed by Cantril's Ladder of Life, RAND-36, and the Minnesota Living with Heart Failure questionnaire, and impairment of QoL was adjusted for by BNP as a marker for severity of HF. We examined a total of 290 HF patients, of whom 145 had HF-PEF (41% female; age 72 +/- 10; LVEF 51 +/- 8%) and 145 had HF-REF (41% female; age 73 +/- 10, LVEF 26 +/- 7%). All HF patients reported markedly low scores of QoL, both on the general and disease-specific QoL questionnaires. Quality of life between patients with HF-PEF and HF-REF did not differ significantly. When adjusting the QoL scores for BNP, an association between QoL and LVEF was not found, i.e. patients with HF-PEF and HF-REF with similar BNP levels had the same impairment in QoL.

Conclusion Quality of life is similarly impaired in patients with HF-PEF as in HF-REF. These findings further support the need for more pharmacological and non-pharmacological studies in patients with HF-PEF.