Physician preferences for management of patients with heart failure and arrhythmia

Heart failure (HF) is one of the most important causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. It is a progressive and irreversible disorder. Survey and questionnaires are helpful verify that real-life daily practice is keeping with what is recommended in the guidelines. In this questionnaire which is consisted of 32 questions about current diagnostic and therapeutic strategies of HF and arrhythmia, we aimed to evaluate awareness of physicians who are interested in HF and arrhythmias about current diagnostic and therapeutic strategies of HF.This survey was conducted in university hospitals, state hospitals, training and research hospitals, private hospitals and medical centers in seven geographical region of Turkey between January and February 2017. The study groups were consisted of 177 physicians (163 cardiologists, 7 cardiovascular surgeons, 6 internal medicine physicians and 1 primary care physician). Less than half of the physicians (N:71, 40.1%) have used natriuretic peptides in the diagnosis of HF and 76.3% of physicians were aware of HF with mid-range EF (HFmrEF)patients with HF and a left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) that ranges from 40 to 49%. Despite optimal medical therapy with diuretic, ACEIs, ARBs, BB and mineralocorticoid receptor antagonists (MRAs), the ratio of physicians who have >50% symptomatic patient population were 6.8%. In this patient, angiotensin receptor neprilysin inhibitor (ARNI) was the treatment choice among 62.7% of physicians. Interestingly, 10.2% of physicians have never heard before ARNI. While only 13.6% physicians had >30% patients with HFpEF, most of the physicians (30.5%) had between 21% and 30% patients with HFpEF.In this questionnaire we want to see a picture from daily practice of physicians who are interested in heart failure. We aimed to measure awareness about current European Society of Cardiology (ESC) heart failure guideline recommendations, new classification of HF according to LVEF and new diagnostic and therapeutic improvements