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  • 7 February 2018 to 1 April 2019
  • Project No: 393
  • Funding round: FR 15

Heart failure (HF) is a condition in which the heart does not work well to pump blood around the body. About half of all people with HF have a type in which the heart is very stiff called heart failure with preserved ejection fraction or HFpEF. We have a study called Optimise-HFpEF where we will identify and follow a group of patients with this type of HF for a year to better understand their HF, their other conditions, needs for support, experience of treatment, and if they have problems requiring  hospital care.  We also want to know more about hospitalisations in this patient group, and about the needs of informal carers (usually a family member). We are proposing 2 sub-studies.  In substudy 1 we will a) ask for data from the Hospital Episode Statistics database so that we have accurate information about hospitalisations (why patients were admitted and how long they stayed); and b) interview patients and carers about what they think led to being admitted, and their experience in hospital and after discharge.  In sub-study 2 we will add to the hospitalisation interviews by interviewing additional carers of patients with HFpEF to ask about their needs and the type of support that they would like to have.  We will also explore their views on a tool that helps carers assess support needs.

Interviews with patients and carers will be confidential, held in a place of the participant’s choosing, audio-recorded and then typed out. 

This information will help us to plan better care and develop a programme of management for patients with HFpEF involving primary care and specialist services. The final agreed optimised management programme will be tested in future studies to see whether it improves patients’ care and health outcomes.

Amount awarded: £34,010

SPCR theme: Non-communicable disease and ageing

Related to: Optimising Management of Patients with Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction in Primary Care (Optimise-HFpEF)” collaborative grant funded in FR14 (no384).