A Study on Prescribing Drugs of Heart Failure and Patient Compliance

Abstract

Introduction

Heart Failure Overview

Heart failure is a clinical syndrome where the heart is weakened and cannot pump enough blood, caused by structural or functional abnormalities. It leads to symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath, and fluid buildup.

Causes

Common causes include hypertension, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy, infections, toxins (e.g., alcohol, drugs), genetic factors, and others such as connective tissue diseases and obstructive sleep apnea.

Stages of Heart Failure

1. Stage A: At risk but no symptoms. Risk factors include hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and exposure to toxins. Treatment focuses on lifestyle changes and managing risk factors.

2. Stage B: Structural heart changes without symptoms. May benefit from medications like ACE inhibitors, ARBs, and beta-blockers, plus lifestyle changes.

3. Stage C: Symptomatic heart failure with signs like shortness of breath, swelling, weight gain, and fatigue. Treated with a combination of medications including diuretics, beta-blockers, ACE inhibitors, and newer agents like SGLT-2 inhibitors.

4. Stage D: Advanced heart failure with poor prognosis. Treatment includes all Stage C medications plus advanced therapies such as mechanical devices, inotropes, heart transplant, and palliative care.

Prevention & Management

• Regular exercise (about 30 min/day)

• Low-sodium, heart-healthy diet

• Smoking cessation

• Control of blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar

• Adherence to prescribed medications

Patient Compliance

Compliance with medical advice and medication is critical for better outcomes in chronic diseases like heart failure. Non-compliance leads to worse health, higher hospitalization, and increased costs. Understanding and improving compliance is a key healthcare focus.

Epidemiology

• Over 64 million people affected worldwide (2022)

• Prevalence ~2% globally, higher in older adults (>10% in those over 75)

• Men have higher incidence, but prevalence similar in women due to longer survival; women often have diastolic dysfunction.

ICD and Heart Failure

The International Classification of Diseases (ICD) system provides standardized coding for heart failure diagnosis, aiding in health records, research, epidemiology, and resource allocation.

Conclusion

By summarizing the statistical data of our study we have observed that the total number of patients who were prescribed on four pillars of drug classes ( ACI’s , MRA’s , Beta- Blockers , SGLT-I’s) out of this drug classes ,this class of drug class , i.e. Beta - blockers class of drugs have major differences in effectiveness in preventing heart failure. The tolerability of all the drugs is different, Beta- Blockers are preferred more than other class of drugs among the study population. The next preferred drug class is MRA’s and then ACEI’s in this ARNI also included and at last SGLT-I’s are preferred according to the disease condition, The subjects of having a heart failure is more in patients with HFrEF than that of patients with HFpEF. Based on reviewing literatures and reference articles, the studies that have been carried out on Heart failure have shown that HFrEF are majorly effective as Beta-Blockers, MRA’s , ACEI’s and SGLT- I’s has an advantage of reduced complications like SOB in improving blood pressure and other heart related effects and has a fixed dosage regimen due to these advantages this four pillars of drug classes can be used in place of other drug classes. And out of 100 subjects 4% were discontinued the drugs due to burning micturition since 10 days CUE was done and pus cells were observed that is 20 cells for HF by taking ACEI’s and SGLT-I’s ,in 1% of subjects and due to cause of non tolerance [PYELONEPHRITIS] due to unavailability of particular drugs this is seen in 1% of subjects and due to wrong drug administration that is SGLT-I’s due to this 1% of subjects have comorbidities , so this are the reasons to that 4% subjects out of 100% have discontinued the medication, As there are limited number of samples the results may not be yet generalized. Further studies can be carried out on large scale population for more accurate evaluation.

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Copyright

Copyright © 2025 Pailla Sampath Reddy, Patnam Shetty Sowmya , P. N. Sai Krishna Sharma , Dr. Reddy Nazemoon, Dr. Dayasagar Rao V.. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.