Effect of basic activities of daily living independence on home discharge and long-term outcomes in patients hospitalized with heart failure

Patients hospitalized for heart failure (HF) experience impairments in functional status, primarily affecting basic activities of daily living (ADL). We investigated the independent effect of functional status for ADL on patient-centered outcomes (i.e., home discharge) and conventional clinical outcomes in HF. We analyzed 2936 consecutive hospitalized patients with HF from a prospective multicenter registry. The functional status of ADL was assessed before discharge by using the Barthel index (BI). Patients were categorized into the lower BI group (≤85; the lowest tertile) and higher BI group (>85). We evaluated the risk-adjusted association between BI and non-home discharge, as well as the two-year all-cause mortality. Exploratory subgroups included patients categorized by age, sex, HF hospitalization, left ventricular ejection fraction, body mass index, and estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). Of the participants (age: 79 [69–85] years; 41.1% women), 86.3% were discharged home. A lower BI was independently associated with non-home discharge (OR: 5.12, 95% CI 3.86–6.80) and higher all-cause mortality rates (HR: 1.96, 95% CI 1.58–2.45). Two-year cardiac and non-cardiac mortality rates were higher in the lower BI group; however, the proportion of cardiac causes in two-year deaths did not differ between the lower and higher BI groups (48.8% vs. 49.5%, P = 0.891). Subgroup analyses consistently demonstrated an association between two-year mortality and lower BI; however, this association was stronger among patients with a higher eGFR (P-value for interaction = 0.004). A lower BI was independently associated with non-home discharge and higher mortality rates because of cardiac- and non-cardiac-related causes in hospitalized patients with HF.