Heart failure reviews
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Heart failure reviews · Jul 2015
ReviewReporting of patient-centred outcomes in heart failure trials: are patient preferences being ignored?
Older people often suffer from multiple diseases. Therefore, universal cross-disease outcomes (e.g. functional status, quality of life, overall survival) are more relevant than disease-specific outcomes, and a range of potential outcomes are needed for medical decision-making. To assess how patient-relevant outcomes have penetrated randomized controlled trials (RCTs), reporting of these outcomes was reviewed in heart failure trials that included patients with multimorbidity. ⋯ This review shows increasing attention for more patient-relevant outcomes; this is promising and indicates more awareness of the importance of a variety of outcomes desirable for patients. However, patients' individual goal attainments were universally absent. For continued progress in patient-centred care, efforts are needed to develop these outcomes, study their merits and pitfalls, and intensify their use in research.