Background: Patients with a mechanical heart valve (MHV) require oral anticoagulation. Poor anticoagulation control is thought to be associated with adverse outcomes, but data are limited.
Objective: To assess the risks of clinical outcomes in patients with a MHV and poor anticoagulation control on warfarin.
Background: Poor health-related quality of life (HRQL) is common in heart failure (HF), but there are few data on HRQL in HF and the association between HRQL and mortality outside Western countries.
Methods: We used the Kansas City Cardiomyopathy Questionnaire-12 (KCCQ-12) to record HRQL in 23 291 patients with HF from 40 countries in 8 different world regions in the G-CHF study (Global Congestive Heart Failure). We compared standardized KCCQ-12 summary scores (adjusted for age, sex, and markers of HF severity) among regions (scores range from 0 to 100, with higher score indicating better HRQL).