Almost two-thirds of general practice patients with confirmed or likely heart failure are prescribed medications that may worsen their condition, such as macrolides or NSAIDs, Australian clinicians have found.

Their study also showed that only one in six patients regularly attending their GP had the condition documented clearly, which could lead to poor use of guideline-recommended therapies.

The team of cardiologists and GPs, led by Professor Andrew Sindone at Sydney’s Concord Hospital, analysed data from 15,500 patients with ‘definite’ and 4800 with ‘probable’ heart failure (HF) who attended a network of 43 GP clinics over a five-year period.

Some 64% of patients, who had a mean age of 70, were prescribed drugs “that may worsen HF or are relatively contraindicated”, including macrolide antibiotics (30%), corticosteroids (26%), NSAIDs (24%) and tricyclic antidepressants (9%).