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Heart failure and multimorbidity in Australian general practice.
- Source :
- Journal of Comorbidity; Jan2017, Vol. 7 Issue 1, p44-49, 6p
- Publication Year :
- 2017
-
Abstract
- Background: Heart failure (HF) is a serious condition that mostly affects older people. Despite the ageing population experiencing an increased prevalence of many chronic conditions, current guidelines focus on isolated management of HF. Objective: To describe the burden of multimorbidity in patients with HF being managed in general practice in Australia. Design: Data from the Bettering the Evaluation And Care of Health (BEACH) programme were used to determine (i) the prevalence of HF, (ii) the number of co-existing long-term conditions, and (iii) the most common disease combinations in patients with HF. The study was undertaken over fifteen, 5-week recording periods between November 2012 and March 2016. Results: The dataset included a total of 25,790 general practitioner (GP) encounters with patients aged ⩾45 years, collected by 1,445 GPs. HF had been diagnosed in 1,119 of these patients, a prevalence of 4.34% (95% confidence interval [CI] 3.99-4.68) among patients at GP encounters, and 2.08% (95% CI 1.87-2.29) when applied to the general Australian population overall. HF rarely occurred in isolation, with 99.1% of patients having at least one and 53.4% having six or more other chronic illnesses. The most common pair of comorbidities among active patients with HF was hypertension and osteoarthritis (43.4%). Conclusion: Overall, one in every 20-25 GP encounters with patients aged ⩾45 years in Australia is with a patient with HF. Multimorbidity is a typical presentation among this patient group and guidelines for general practice must take this into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 2235042X
- Volume :
- 7
- Issue :
- 1
- Database :
- Complementary Index
- Journal :
- Journal of Comorbidity
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- 130026288
- Full Text :
- https://doi.org/10.15256/joc.2017.7.106