Determinants of 30-day readmissions in adult patients with heart failure in Pakistan: a prospective cohort study...

Heart failure (HF) is a prevalent cardiovascular disease worldwide, affecting 1-2% of adults. According to the WHO 2022 report, Pakistan ranks 18th globally for HF-related deaths. The exact prevalence of HF is not well documented. Additionally, knowledge and self-care behaviour among patients with HF are suboptimal. Therefore, this study aims to assess the knowledge and self-care behaviours of patients with HF before being discharged from the hospital and tracks the time to 30-day readmissions.

A prospective cohort research design will be used. Patients will be recruited from three tertiary care hospitals through consecutive sampling based on specific inclusion criteria. A structured tool will be used to collect demographic and clinical variables from 227 patients with HF. The Urdu version of the knowledge and self-care behaviour questionnaires will be used to collect the data. Kaplan-Meier product limit method and Cox proportional hazards model will be employed to obtain estimates with 95% CIs.

The study has been approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of Shifa Tameer-e-Millat University, Pakistan (IRB 103-24), and written permission was obtained from the administration of the understudy hospitals. Before obtaining a written consent, all patients will receive detailed information about the study. Patients will have the freedom to withdraw from the study at any point. Patients' confidentiality will be ensured. The study findings will be disseminated to essential stakeholders and published in scientific papers and conference proceedings.