OBJECTIVES : The prevalence of congestive heart failure has increased globally during the past decades. The aim of our study was to determine the epidemiological disease burden of congestive heart failure.

METHODS : Data were derived from the financial database of the Hungarian National Health Insurance Fund Administration (NHIFA), for the year 2018. Data analysed included annual patient numbers, case numbers and prevalence of care utilisation per 100,000 population according to age groups and sex. The following health insurance treatment categories were included into our study: general practice care, home care, in- and outpatient care, medical imaging, laboratory diagnostics, drugs and medical aids. Patients with congestive heart failure were identified with the following code of the International Classification of Diseases 10^th revision: I5000.

RESULTS : The highest national patient numbers were in general practice care: 80,439 men and 122,471 women, in total 202,910 patients, followed by the use of pharmaceuticals (76,094 men and 113,795 women, in total 189,889 patients), and outpatient care (27,352 men and 27,678 women, in total 55,030 patients). Based on patient numbers with regards to pharmaceuticals, prevalence in 100,000 among men was 1628.9 patients, among women 2228.3 patients, in total 1941.9. As regards sex distribution, in general practice care 39.6% of patients were men and 60.4% were women, in the use of pharmaceuticals, 40.1% of patients were men, 59.9% were women, in outpatient care 49.7% were men, 50.3% were women.

CONCLUSIONS : Prevalence of congestive heart failure was 1.37 times higher among women than among men. Several factors may contribute to the high prevalence of undetected heart failure.