10 11 Pre–post change in percentage selleck bio physician adherence and average physician adherence was assessed via Student t tests or the

Wilcoxon tests, as appropriate. Patient adherence to prescribed therapies was determined at baseline and at 5 months, using both electronic pill cap monitoring (using the MEMS V Trackcap; AARDEX, Zug, Switzerland) and the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS).14 MMAS provides a score of 0–4, with 4 indicating the highest adherence. Each patient’s pill cap use was monitored for an ACE-I, ARB, β-blocker or diuretic, in that order depending on which of these drugs was prescribed. Patients were instructed to place a month’s supply of monitored medication into their pill cap

container and use it over the ensuing month. Patient adherence was then measured based on the percentage of time a patient took a pill relative to the prescribed timing. Patients were designated ‘adherent’ if their observed adherence was ≥80%.9 13 15 The pre–post change in per cent adherence was analysed via paired Student t tests or the Wilcoxon tests, as appropriate. The pre–post change in the proportion of patients designated as ‘adherent’ (via a pill cap or MMAS) was analysed via McNemar’s exact test. Sodium intake was determined by a Food Frequency Questionnaire specifically designed to assess sodium intake16 and the pre–post change was analysed via paired Student t test or the Wilcoxon test, as appropriate. Sensitivity analyses were conducted to account for missing data at the 5-month data collection. The analysis consisted of a comparison of results under three different data replacement approaches: (1) a ‘Best Case’ scenario in which missing values were replaced

with values indicating ‘adherence’ (the maximum value, for the MMAS); (2) a ‘Worst Case’ scenario in which missing values were replaced with values indicating ‘non-adherence’ (minimum value for MMAS) and (3) a ‘Middle Case’ scenario in which missing values were replaced with the last observation carried forward. During scheduled follow-up visits, patients were asked whether or not they had been recently hospitalised. Data on all reported hospitalisations were collected after obtaining proper consent. Carfilzomib To provide a preliminary estimate of the intervention’s impact on rehospitalisations, the 30-day readmission rate among the study cohort was compared with the year 2010′s 30-day hospital readmission rate at the site from which they were recruited (Rush University Medical Center). Results Between January and July 2010; 266 patients with systolic HF were screened (figure 1); 146 met the exclusion criteria; 29 were unreachable; 22 patients refused to enrol and the physicians for 36 patients refused to participate in the study.