TY - JOUR T1 - Direct and indirect effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with cardiomyopathy JF - Open Heart JO - Open Heart DO - 10.1136/openhrt-2021-001918 VL - 9 IS - 1 SP - e001918 AU - Daniel J Hammersley AU - Rachel J Buchan AU - Amrit S Lota AU - Lukas Mach AU - Richard E Jones AU - Brian P Halliday AU - Upasana Tayal AU - Devendra Meena AU - Abbas Dehghan AU - Ioanna Tzoulaki AU - A John Baksi AU - Antonis Pantazis AU - Angharad M Roberts AU - Sanjay K Prasad AU - James S Ware Y1 - 2022/01/01 UR - http://openheart.bmj.com/content/9/1/e001918.abstract N2 - Objectives (1) To evaluate the prevalence and hospitalisation rate of COVID-19 infections among patients with dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) in the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital Cardiovascular Research Centre (RBHH CRC) Biobank. (2) To evaluate the indirect impact of the pandemic on patients with cardiomyopathy through the Heart Hive COVID-19 study. (3) To assess the impact of the pandemic on national cardiomyopathy-related hospital admissions.Methods (1) 1236 patients (703 DCM, 533 HCM) in the RBHH CRC Biobank were assessed for COVID-19 infections and hospitalisations; (2) 207 subjects (131 cardiomyopathy, 76 without heart disease) in the Heart Hive COVID-19 study completed online surveys evaluating physical health, psychological well-being, and behavioural adaptations during the pandemic and (3) 11 447 cardiomyopathy-related hospital admissions across National Health Service (NHS) England were studied from NHS Digital Hospital Episode Statistics over 2019–2020.Results A comparable proportion of patients with cardiomyopathy in the RBHH CRC Biobank had tested positive for COVID-19 compared with the UK population (1.1% vs 1.6%, p=0.14), but a higher proportion of those infected were hospitalised (53.8% vs 16.5%, p=0.002). In the Heart Hive COVID-19 study, more patients with cardiomyopathy felt their physical health had deteriorated due to the pandemic than subjects without heart disease (32.3% vs 13.2%, p=0.004) despite only 4.6% of the cardiomyopathy cohort reporting COVID-19 symptoms. A 17.9% year-on-year reduction in national cardiomyopathy-related hospital admissions was observed in 2020.Conclusion Patients with cardiomyopathy had similar reported rates of testing positive for COVID-19 to the background population, but those with test-proven infection were hospitalised more frequently. Deterioration in physical health amongst patients could not be explained by COVID-19 symptoms, inferring a significant contribution of the indirect consequences of the pandemic.Trial registration number NCT04468256All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as online supplemental information. ER -