Heart failure & cardiomyopathies
Polypharmacy on first admission to hospital for people with heart failure: baseline findings from the PULSE cohort
Authors' conclusion
Polypharmacy is common on first admission to hospital for people with heart failure. More medications at admission are associated with increasing age, co-morbidity, and frailty. People with polypharmacy are more likely to have a heart failure with preserved ejection fraction diagnosis, have worse symptoms and a longer hospital stay.
Study context
- Population
- Patients on first hospital admission for HF (PULSE cohort)
- Participants
- 660 patients
- Outcome
- Polypharmacy prevalence
- Follow-up
- First HF admission
Methodological detailssingle-centre, longitudinal, observational
- Single-centre
- Longitudinal
- Observational
Main finding
As reported in the abstract
- Polypharmacy prevalence on admission
- 87.3%
- Polypharmacy prevalence at discharge
- 95.1%
- Admission vs discharge
- P < 0.001
- Median number of medications on admission (25th-75th centile 7-12)
- 9
- Median number of medications on discharge (25th-75th centile 8-13)
- 10
Observational data: associations, not effects.
Further findings
Mean medication complexity index score · admission vs discharge
- Admission (±SD 14.9)
- 28.5
- Discharge (±14.1)
- 31.8
- Increase admission to discharge
- P < 0.001
Factors associated with more medications on admission
- Increasing age
- P < 0.001
- Higher Charlson Co-morbidity Index
- P < 0.001
- More co-morbidities
- P < 0.001
- Higher Clinical Frailty Scale
- P < 0.001
- Longer length of stay
- P = 0.03
- Worse NYHA class
- P = 0.04
- HFpEF vs HFrEF
- P = 0.002
Medication profile
- CV medications share of medications
- 50%
- Prescribing of HF medications reduced with increased polypharmacy
Original publication
Polypharmacy on first admission to hospital for people with heart failure: baseline findings from the PULSE cohort. Eur Heart J Qual Care Clin Outcomes. Published 16 May 2025. doi:10.
Composed by AI from the published abstract and checked against it. How Briefs are made →