OBJECTIVE: To examine the gradual association between self-reported health status and mortality in patients with heart failure (HF) as current research has focused on poor health status and increased risk of mortality.

METHOD: This is a substudy of the DANISH (Defibrillator Implantation in Patients with Nonischemic Systolic HF) trial in which 1116 patients were randomized to receive or not receive an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator. Health status was assessed by a single question of the Short-Form 36. Patients were classified as having excellent/very good, good, fair (reference) or poor health status. We assessed the association between health status and mortality using multivariable Cox proportional hazard models.

RESULTS: Self-reported health status was completed by 943 (84%) patients at randomization with a median follow-up of 67 months and a health status distribution of; excellent/very good (n = 79, 8%), good (n = 369, 39%), fair (n = 409, 43%), and poor (n = 86, 9%). All-cause mortality (death events/ 100 person-years) occurred with gradual differences according to health status from excellent/ very good (2.14), good (3.74), fair (5.21) to poor health status (5.57). The gradual difference yielded a crude hazard ratio (HR) of 0.40, 95% CI 0.20-0.80 (adjusted HR 0.47 (95% CI 0.23-0.95) for excellent/ very good health status, HR 0.71, 95% CI 0.52-0.97 (adjusted HR 0.78 (95% CI 0.56-1.08) for good health status. Poor being worse than fair health status yielded a crude HR of 1.07, 95% CI 0.67-1.69.

CONCLUSION: Excellent/very good self-reported health status as assessed by a single question was associated with lower long-term mortality in patients with HF.