The Clinical Features of Heart Failure among Libyan Female Patients in Tripoli - Libya

الملخص

Although Heart Failure (HF) is a major cause of comorbidity and mortality worldwide affecting both genders, females are still
under-diagnosed, treated and have not been adequately studied. To identify the demographic, clinical features and treatment
modalities for heart failure among women admitted to the three teaching hospitals in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, from January
2021 to July 2022.
A descriptive, cross-sectional study included 165 female patients admitted with the diagnosis of heart failure, A self–constructed
questionnaire was designed to collect data from medical records then sorted, coded, and analyzed by IBM SPSS Statistics for
Windows version 20.
165 female patients with heart failure were evaluated; The results showed that the mean age was 60.9 ± 12.3 years, and 84.8%
were housewives. Hypertension was the most prevalent comorbidity and cause of HF, in 55.8% and 56.9% of cases, respectively,
the commonest presenting symptoms were dyspnea 93.9%, most of the cases were diagnosed as HFrEF, 47.8% of them were
admitted due to poor compliance to treatment, and 15.8% due to arrhythmias. Only 5.4% of our patients received the full
Guidelines Directed Medical Therapy (GDMT).
Conclusion: Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is still underdiagnosed in contrast to the Heart
failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) category. The majority of the patients have several comorbidities.
Only a minority of them received full GDMT.