Objective: We examined temporal heart failure (HF) prescription patterns in a large representative sample of real-world patients in the UK, using electronic health records (EHR).
Methods: From primary and secondary care EHR, we identified 85 732 patients with a HF diagnosis between 2002 and 2015. Almost 50% of patients with HF were women and the median age was 79.1 (IQR 70.2-85.7) years, with age at diagnosis increasing over time.
Results: We found several trends in pharmacological HF management, including increased beta blocker prescriptions over time (29% in 2002-2005 and 54% in 2013-2015), which was not observed for mineralocorticoid receptor-antagonists (MR-antagonists) (18% in 2002-2005 and 18% in 2013-2015); higher prescription rates of loop diuretics in women and elderly patients together with lower prescription rates of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and/or angiotensin II receptor blockers, beta blockers or MR-antagonists in these patients; little change in medication prescription rates occurred after 6 months of HF diagnosis and, finally, patients hospitalised for HF who had no recorded follow-up in primary care had considerably lower prescription rates compared with patients with a HF diagnosis in primary care with or without HF hospitalisation.
Conclusion: In the general population, the use of MR-antagonists for HF remained low and did not change throughout 13 years of follow-up. For most patients, few changes were seen in pharmacological management of HF in the 6 months following diagnosis.
Keywords: cardiac epidemiology; heart failure; public health.
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2021. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ.