Self-assessed symptoms in chronic heart failure--important information for clinical management

• AIM: To compare the patients' self-assessment of the severity of their symptoms with a physicians assessment and to evaluate the ability of self-assessed symptoms and ejection fraction (EF) to predict long-term survival in heart failure patients. METHOD: Patients (n=332) evaluated symptoms using a self-administered functional classification scale (Specific Activity Scale, SAS), which is equivalent to the NYHA scale. EF and NYHA functional class was also recorded. All patients were followed over a 3-year period. RESULTS: Approximately 50% of patients classified themselves into SAS class I. In contrast, the cardiologists classified only 9% of the patients as NYHA class I. In patients with severe left ventricular dysfunction (EF

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