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Greater Pain Severity Is Associated with Worse Outcomes in Patients with Heart Failure

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Abstract

We examined the relationship between pain severity and outcomes in patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) in the HF-ACTION randomized controlled trial. Trends of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) measures grouped by patients’ self-reported baseline bodily pain severity were compared using correlation tests, and the association between pain severity and clinical outcomes (including a primary composite endpoint of all-cause mortality and all-cause hospitalization) was assessed using multivariable adjusted analyses. Of the 2310 patients, 22.9% reported no pain, 45.8% very mild/mild, 24.9% moderate, and 6.4% severe/very severe. Greater pain severity was associated with worse HRQoL measures (EuroQoL-5D-3L and Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire; both p < 0.0001). Compared to those reporting no pain, patients reporting severe/very severe pain had greater risk for the primary endpoint (adjusted hazard ratio 1.42, 95% confidence interval 1.11–1.83, p = 0.01). In patients with HFrEF, greater pain severity was associated with worse HRQoL and clinical outcomes. Trial Registration: NCT00047437

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Abbreviations

BDI-II:

Beck Depression Inventory-II

CCS:

Canadian Cardiovascular Society

CPX:

Cardiopulmonary exercise

CV:

Cardiovascular

HF:

Heart failure

HF-ACTION:

Heart Failure: A Controlled Trial Investigating Outcomes of Exercise Training

HRQoL:

Health-related quality of life

KCCQ:

Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire

NYHA:

New York Heart Association

RER:

Respiratory exchange ratio

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Funding

HF-ACTION was funded by the National Institutes of Health. This manuscript was funded internally by the Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, NC.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Stanford Center for Clinical Research, Stanford University, 1070 Arastradero Rd, Suite 100, Palo Alto, CA, 94304, USA

    Kent Y. Feng

  2. Inova Heart and Vascular Institute, Falls Church, VA, USA

    Christopher M. O’Connor

  3. Duke Clinical Research Institute, Durham, NC, USA

    Christopher M. O’Connor, Robert Clare, Brooke Alhanti & Robert J. Mentz

  4. Department of Medicine, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

    Christopher M. O’Connor, William E. Kraus & Robert J. Mentz

  5. Department of Medicine, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, USA

    Ileana L. Piña

  6. Department of Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    David J. Whellan

Authors
  1. Kent Y. Feng
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  2. Christopher M. O’Connor
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  8. Robert J. Mentz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Kent Y. Feng.

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Informed Consent Statement

The protocol was approved by the institutional review board or ethics committee at each participating institution and all patients provided written informed consent. No animal studies were carried out by the authors for this article.

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Associate Editor Ana Barac oversaw the review of this article

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Clinical Significance

In patients with chronic heart failure with reduced ejection fraction, greater pain severity was associated with worse composite endpoint of all-cause mortality and all-cause hospitalizations.

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Feng, K.Y., O’Connor, C.M., Clare, R. et al. Greater Pain Severity Is Associated with Worse Outcomes in Patients with Heart Failure. J. of Cardiovasc. Trans. Res. 14, 984–991 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12265-021-10104-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12265-021-10104-0

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