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The Effect of Drug Therapy on Quality of Life in Heart Failure

  • Interventions & Outcomes
  • Published:
Disease Management & Health Outcomes

Summary

Quality of life (QOL) analysis provides a unique insight into the global impact of drug therapy as seen from the patient’s perspective. Because of their relative novelty, these measurements have been preferentially applied to more recently developed drugs. There are little data of this type available for most of the more established heart failure agents.

Modern QOL measurement techniques appear robust and have provided support for the use of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors in heart failure and the use of β-adrenoceptor blockade in dilated cardiomyopathy.

QOL analyses raise ethical questions when such measures indicate an apparent improvement in measured QOL in response to a drug whilst, at the same time, being associated with decreased survival amongst users.

There are some unresolved methodological problems with the interpretation of QOL data. Despite these, QOL analyses represent an important advance as they provide valuable complementary data to more traditional indices in the assessment of the effect of treatment on the disease process and patient well being.

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  1. Department of Therapeutics and Pharmacology, Whitla Medical Building, Queen’s University of Belfast, 97 Lisburn Road, Belfast, BT9 7BL, Northern Ireland

    Colm McGurk & Bernard Silke

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About the Author: Dr McGurk is a registrar in endocrinology and diabetes. He is currently working in this Department as a Clinical Research Fellow where his interests centre on the role of the endothelium in normal physiology and also its pathophysiological role in disease states such as diabetes mellitus and ongestive heart failure.

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McGurk, C., Silke, B. The Effect of Drug Therapy on Quality of Life in Heart Failure. Dis-Manage-Health-Outcomes 2, 93–106 (1997). https://doi.org/10.2165/00115677-199702020-00005

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