Effect of a Self-care Intervention on 90-Day Outcomes in Patients With Acute Heart Failure Discharged From the Emergency Department: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Abstract

Importance: Up to 20% of patients who present to the emergency department (ED) with acute heart failure (AHF) are discharged without hospitalization. Compared with rates in hospitalized patients, readmission and mortality are worse for ED patients.

Objective: To assess the impact of a self-care intervention on 90-day outcomes in patients with AHF who are discharged from the ED.

Design, setting, and participants: Get With the Guidelines in Emergency Department Patients With Heart Failure was an unblinded, parallel-group, multicenter randomized trial. Patients were randomized 1:1 to usual care vs a tailored self-care intervention. Patients with AHF discharged after ED-based management at 15 geographically diverse EDs were included. The trial was conducted from October 28, 2015, to September 5, 2019.

Interventions: Home visit within 7 days of discharge and twice-monthly telephone-based self-care coaching for 3 months.

Main outcomes and measures: The primary outcome was a global rank of cardiovascular death, HF-related events (unscheduled clinic visit due to HF, ED revisit, or hospitalization), and changes in the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire-12 (KCCQ-12) summary score (SS) at 90 days. Key secondary outcomes included the global rank outcome at 30 days and changes in the KCCQ-12 SS score at 30 and 90 days. Intention-to-treat analysis was performed for the primary, secondary, and safety outcomes. Per-protocol analysis was conducted including patients who completed a home visit and had scheduled outpatient follow-up in the intervention arm.

Results: Owing to slow enrollment, 479 of a planned 700 patients were randomized: 235 to the intervention arm and 244 to the usual care arm. The median age was 63.0 years (interquartile range, 54.7-70.2), 302 patients (63%) were African American, 305 patients (64%) were men, and 178 patients (37%) had a previous ejection fraction greater than 50%. There was no significant difference in the primary outcome between patients in the intervention vs usual care arm (hazard ratio [HR], 0.89; 95% CI, 0.73-1.10; P = .28). At day 30, patients in the intervention arm had significantly better global rank (HR, 0.80; 95% CI, 0.64-0.99; P = .04) and a 5.5-point higher KCCQ-12 SS (95% CI, 1.3-9.7; P = .01), while at day 90, the KCCQ-12 SS was 2.7 points higher (95% CI, -1.9 to 7.2; P = .25).

Conclusions and relevance: The self-care intervention did not improve the primary global rank outcome at 90 days in this trial. However, benefit was observed in the global rank and KCCQ-12 SS at 30 days, suggesting that an early benefit of a tailored self-care program initiated at an ED visit for AHF was not sustained through 90 days.