title: [Quality of care of patients with chronic heart failure in primary care].
abstract: BACKGROUND
  The prevalence of Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) in Spain is very high. It is the main cause of many hospital admissions and it is associated with high mortality rates. Its management in Primary Care is not always adequate. Our objective was to evaluate whether an educational intervention in general practitioners would improve the health care of their patients with chronic heart failure.
  
  
  METHODS
  Prospective, randomised, and controlled study. A structured formative course was given to the intervention group (IG) of practitioners. A year later changes were compared with a control group (CG). The settings were two Primary Care Centres. One of them was in a rural setting, and the other one with a mixture of rural and urban populations. The study included 185 patients diagnosed with CHF, with a mean age of 79.8 years, and they were assigned to 20 practitioners (Total population: 15, 921) We evaluated the quality of medical history, clinical examination, laboratory tests and treatment.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At the end of the study there were marked differences between both groups. In the IG, the Medical History improved 1.42 points (95% CI: 0.57 to 2.28), P = .001. The Clinical Examination improved 2.37 points (95% CI: 1.10 to 3.65), P > .001 and the Laboratory Tests, 0.75 points (95% CI: -0.15 to 1.66), P = .10; The Overall Difference was 5.44 points (95% Cl: 3.25 to 7.62), P > .001. There were slight improvements in Treatment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The intervention promoted from our own work settings achieved a general improvement in the care of patients with heart failure.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Velasco
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Nielsen
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D058005:General Practitioners / Q000193:education / Q000592:standards*; D006333:Heart Failure / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D016896:Treatment Outcome