Mortality and Readmission Rates After Heart Failure: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Objective: The current work aimed to examine the rates of and risk factors for mortality and readmission after heart failure (HF).

Setting: A systematic search was carried out in PubMed, the Cochrane Library, and EMBASE to identify eligible reports. The random-effects model was utilized to evaluate the pooled results.

Participants: A total of 27 studies with 515,238 participants were finally meta-analysed. The HF patients had an average age of 76.3 years, with 51% of the sample being male, in the pooled analysis.

Primary and secondary outcome measures: The outcome measures were 30-day and 1-year readmission rates, mortality, and risk factors for readmission and mortality.

Results: The effect sizes for readmission and mortality were estimated as the mean and 95% confidence interval (CI). The estimated 30-day and 1-year all-cause readmission rates were 0.19 (95% CI 0.14-0.23) and 0.53 (95% CI 0.46-0.59), respectively, while the all-cause mortality rates were 0.14 (95% CI 0.10-0.18) and 0.29 (95% CI 0.25-0.33), respectively. Comorbidities were highly prevalent in individuals with HF.

Conclusion: Heart failure hospitalization is followed by high readmission and mortality rates.

Keywords: heart failure; hospitalization; meta-analysis; mortality; prevalence; readmission.