OBJECTIVES: To determine the health related quality of life (HRQOL) of patients with heart failure (HF) hospitalized in the Canary Islands and to estimate their utilities by analyzing the influence of sociodemographic and clinical factors such as gender or severity according to New York Heart Association (NYHA) classification. A secondary objective is to obtain utilities to be used in an economic model to evaluate a cardiac device. METHODS: Descriptive analysis within a prospective observational multicenter study of a cohort of patients with HF admitted to cardiology or internal medicine units at several hospitals in the Canary Islands, Spain. HRQOL was assessed using the EQ-5D questionnaire among others. Utility was estimated for the entire sample and for subgroups of patients, using the Spanish tariffs VAS (visual analog scale) and TTO (time trade-off). RESULTS: We present the results of a sample of 176 patients enrolled so far (51% male, mean age 74 years). Average utility (SD) of the entire sample is 0.5297 (0.2107) (VAS rate). Women reported poorer HRQOL than men (0.5182 vs. 0.5421); HRQOL is lower in health states of lower functional capacity: 0.6400 in patients with NYHA-I and 0.4491 in patients with NYHA-III. CONCLUSIONS: Differences between sub-groups and overall low HRQOL were observed, possibly due to the hospitalization of surveyed patients. These local findings coincide with the international literature and may be useful for developing the economic model.