Background/objectives. Without knowing the exact CHF prevalence, chronic heart failure (CHF) occurs frequently in elderly people both inside and outside nursing homes. For a diagnosis we have to rely on physical examination and additional tests. We therefore run the risk of missing CHF diagnoses or of diagnosing CHF when we should not. Natriuretic peptide assays have emerged as a diagnostic test but their use in nursing home residents is limited. We examined the number of misdiagnoses, the CHF prevalence and the role of natriuretic peptide. Method. Residents in one centre without aphasia, cognitive impairments or metastatic cancer were screened for CHF; the natriuretic peptide levels were measured separately.

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a Comparisons were made only between corresponding NT-proBNP u and NT-proBNP p levels at P <0.01. All CV i values for NT-proBNP u (and therefore all RCVs for NT-proBNP u ) were higher compared with that for NT-proBNP p .

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