Objective To investigate the clinical features and treatments of Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) patients in 17 three-level class A Chinese medicine (CM) hospitals in China.

Methods The case-observed table was designed and used in this research, and 1088 patients were admitted to the cardiovascular department in above hospitals. Inducements, Fundamental causes, levels of cardiac function, combined diseases, and types of syndrome were observed in CHF patients. Treatments by Western medicine (WM), traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) therapy and Chinese patent medicine were also observed.

Results The average age of patients was (66.99 ± 10.33) years, and 622 patients (57.17%) were males. Coronary heart disease (924 cases, 84.93%), hypertensive heart disease (381 cases, 35.02%) and dilated cardiomyopathy (73 cases, 6.71%) were the fundamental causes. There were 15 patients (1.38%) with New York Heart Association (NYHA) class IHF, 279 (25.64%) with NYHA class II HF, 634 (58.27%) with NYHA III HF, 150 (13.79%) with IV HF, and 10 (0.92%) without the valid information of heart function. Overtired (491 cases, 55.42%), cardiopathy exacerbation (243 cases, 27.43%), infection (204 cases, 23.02%), no obvious precipitating factor (192 cases, 21.67%) and emotional fluctuation (191 cases, 21.56%) are the main inactive of CHF. Arrhythmia (242 cases, 22.24%), type 2 diabetes mellitus (226 cases, 20.77%), cerebrovascular disease (108 cases, 9.93%) and dyslipidemia (97 cases, 8.92%) were the main combined diseases. The top 5 western drugs were ACEI/ARB (550 cases, 50.55%), aspirin (524 cases, 48.16%), β-blocker (485 cases, 44.58%), diuretic (433 cases, 39.80%) and nitrates (353 cases, 32.44%). Qi deficiency (887cases, 81.53%), blood stasis (832 cases, 76.47%), fluid-retention (339 cases, 31.16%) and yin deficiency (294 cases, 27.02%) were dominated in CHF syndrome factors. Totally 256 patients (23.53%) were treated with Chinese patent medicine.

Conclusions The normalised treatments of WM in CM hospitals were similar in WM hospitals. Qi deficiency, blood stasis, fluid-retention and yin deficiency were the main syndrome factors of CHF patients in CM hospitals. Besides the treatments according to syndrome differentiation, doctors in CM hospitals should improve the normalised WM treatment of CHF.