Living alone combined with physical frailty or cognitive frailty is independent risk factor of outcomes in the patients with acute heart failure after discharge

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Abstract Background Living status is an important factor to manage the conditions of acute heart failure (AHF) patients after discharge. In patients with heart failure (HF), a frailty is a common and serious complication. However, the association between living alone and the outcome in HF patients have not been well described. Purpose The purpose of this study is to identify the association between living alone and following outcomes. Furthermore, we reveal the impact of living alone combined with physical or cognitive frailty in AHF patient after discharge. Methods We have enrolled 1117 discharged patients with AHF in the Kitakawachi Clinical Background and Outcome of Heart Failure Registry (KICKOFF Registry; 13 hospitals in a city in Japan) from April 2015 to January 2017. The KICKOFF Registry is a prospective multicenter community-based cohort of AHF patients. We defined physical frailty as impossible outdoor walking and cognitive frailty as dementia. We divided into three groups, living without alone (non-alone, n=898), living alone without frailty (alone without frailty, n=148) and living alone with physical or cognitive frailty (alone with frailty, n=71). We compared the clinical characteristics and outcomes between three groups. We defined a primary outcome as a composite endpoint that included all-cause mortality and hospitalization for HF. Results During the follow-up period whose median was 573 days, a total of 548 patients (49.1%) had the composite endpoint, and the highest proportion of the composite endpoint was in alone with frailty, 63.4%. This was followed by 49.2% in non-alone, and 41.2% in alone without frailty. In the Kaplan-Meier analyses, the composite endpoint was a significantly higher in alone with frailty than the other groups (Figure A), but there was no significant difference between all patients with living alone and those without living alone (Figure B). After adjustment by gender, age, and the other co-morbidities (HF, coronary artery disease, valvular disease, hypertension, diabetes, atrial fibrillation and chronic kidney disease) in the Cox proportional hazard model, the composite endpoint hazard ratio (HR) increased significantly in the factor of alone with frailty when compared with the others (adjusted HR, 1.38; 95% confidence interval, 1.00–1.86; p=0.048). Conclusion In this study, the patients with only living alone have not independently prognostic impact, but those with living alone combined physical frailty or cognitive frailty have independently prognostic impact after discharged AHF. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: Private company. Main funding source(s): This research was supported by research funding from Nakajima Steel Pipe Company Limited.