Heart failure management in Poland: The National Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and Treatment Program POLKARD, edition 2003-2005.
BACKGROUND
The aim of this study was to assess actual management of heart failure (HF) in Poland, both in outpatient clinics and hospitals.


RESULTS
The survey was undertaken between April 21 2005 and December 31 2005 in 796 outpatient departments and 258 internal medicine and cardiology hospital wards chosen at random. In total 3980 HF outpatients and 1294 inpatients were included. Trained nurses performed the questionnaire-based assessment of diagnostic procedures and pharmacotherapy. Heart failure was diagnosed among general practitioners' (GPs) outpatients most frequently, basing on symptoms (64.0%), ECG (47.0%) and chest X-ray (29.9%), while specialists based their diagnosis on symptoms (52.2%) and echocardiography (37.7%). Most HF outpatients and hospital patients were treated with ACE-I (88.3% and 81%, respectively), beta-blockers (68.3% vs. 84.7%) and diuretics (74.4% vs. 90.3%). Spironolactone accounted for 48.3% vs. 56.3% of the patients, while digitalis glycosides 39.2% and 27.4%, respectively. AT-1 blockers were used very rarely (3.5% vs. 2.5%).


CONCLUSIONS
GPs in Poland tend to diagnose HF on clinical grounds while specialists use more diagnostic investigations. Specialists provide higher quality HF care than GPs, both in outpatient clinics and hospitals. Significant progress in HF management has occurred in Poland since previous studies. (Cardiol J 2007; 14: 552-560).
Fedyk-Łukasik
Małgorzata
M
Zdrojewski
Tomasz
T
Wizner
Barbara
B
Opolski
Grzegorz
G
Dubiel
Jacek
J
Stompór
Małgorzata
M
Wyrzykowski
Bogdan
B
Mogilnaya
Irina
I
Marchel
Michał
M
Grodzicki
Tomasz
T