Reasons for Non-compliance with medication and Disease severity among heart failure patients at Benazir Bhutto Hospital Rawalpindi

Heart failure is a silent epidemic that is growing exponentially among both genders. Objectives: To determine the reasons for non-compliance with medication and severity of illness among heart failure patients. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was done among 277 heart failure patients who visited Cardiology department of Benazir Bhutto Hospital during 2020 and enrolled in study through consecutive non-probability sampling. Data was gathered pertinent to demographics, hospital stay, comorbidities, drug compliance, physical activity and reasons for expiry. Severity of disease was categorized by using NYHA classification. Variations in mean age of the both genders and length of hospital stay between recovering and expiring patients were statistically determined by independent sample t-test. P-value ≤ 0.05 was taken significant. 95% CI were also computed. Results: Of the 277 patients, 56% and 44% were males and females respectively with mean age 56.5 ± 15.9 years. Most (65.7%) were illiterate. There was significant difference (P 0.003) (95%CI (1.85 – 9.35) in mean age of both genders. About 71.8% and 25.6% patients belonged to low and middle social class respectively and 68% of them were non-compliant with medication. 59.3% were non-compliant due to unawareness while 23.4% and 15.9% had non-compliance due to non-affordability and adversity of medicines respectively. Out of 15 expiring cases, 13 succumbed to cardiac arrest. Mean length of hospital stay was 5.92 ± 3.7 days. About 122 and 112 cases were in NYHA heart failure class III and IV respectively. Conclusion: Incognizance about the medication was the prime reasons for non-compliance