Practices of clinical examination of heart failure patients in primary health care.

The aim of this cross-sectional cohort study was to examine practices of clinical examination of heart failure patients in three primary health care regions in northern Finland. Altogether, 825 randomly selected heart failure patients aged 45 years or older, who had special reimbursement for drugs for the treatment of heart failure, were included. Main outcome measures were the frequency of medical visits and the mode of clinical examinations during control visits and symptomatic visits due to heart failure made by general practitioners. The prevalence of heart failure was 2% among those aged 45-75 years and 18% among the older ones. No differences existed in the incidence of all medical visits made as a result of heart failure, between the regions. ECG recordings, auscultation of the heart and lungs, measurements of blood pressure and recordings of ankle swelling were carried out in 72%, 79%, 85%, 90% and 59% of cases of control visits, and in 78%, 63%, 79%, 77% and 49% of cases in symptomatic visits, respectively. Chest X-ray examinations and recording of liver size were seldom carried out: 16% and 12% in control visits, and 19% and 11% in symptomatic visits, respectively. Important prognostic markers of heart failure were recorded even more rarely: jugular venous pressure, in 1% of control visits and 3% of symptomatic visits and the third heart sound not at all. NYHA grading had been carried out in 8% and echocardiography in 13% of cases. The prevalence of heart failure was higher than in many clinical studies, suggesting high number of false positive heart failure diagnoses made in primary health care. Some clinical examinations of significant prognostic value in heart failure are underused by general practitioners. Therefore, further education among general practitioners is needed to improve the practices of clinical examination in heart failure patients.