Table 2.

Data collected in the study

Type of data	Variables
Definition of inclusion criteria	Hospitalisation.- hospital stay at least one night. Heart failure.- Framingham and European Society of Cardiology criteria Comorbidity.- Charlson index and other (see text) [34]
Psychosocial variables	*Sex #Dependence in ADLs and IADLs.- Index of Katz [35] and Lawton [35,36] #Quality of life.- Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire [37] #Depression.- 15-item Yessavage depression scale [38] #Cognitive function.- Lobo cognitive miniexam [39] #Health literacy.- SHALSA questionnaire[40] #Knowledge of disease [33] #Knowledge of treatment and self-care measures [41] *Housing conditions [42] *Social support.- OARS questionnaire [43] #Treatment compliance.- interview and Morisky-Green test.
Biomedical variables	*Age *Pneumococcal and influenza vaccinations *Cardiovascular risk factors.- hypertension, smoking, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia and obesity. *Factors leading to admission *Length of hospital stay *Aetiology of heart failure #Functional class (NYHA) *Ejection fraction.- transthoracic echocardiography #Blood sodium, NTpBNP, creatinine and glucose #Blood pressure, height and weight (body mass index)
Treatment	#Total number of drugs #Drugs.- loop and potassium-sparing diuretics, angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, beta-blockers, antiplatelets, anticoagulants, statins #Adverse effects associated with treatment
Number of emergency department visits	#To be detected by review of the computerized clinical history or by the hospital admission records, counting all episodes after the date of discharge of the index admission. The number of these visits directly related with heart failure will be recorded.
Intermediate outcome variables	#Knowledge of disease #Self-care measures
Final outcome variables	#Readmission.- all hospitalisation episodes of more than 24 hours following the date of discharge of the index admission. The following variables will be recorded: number and proportion of patients who are readmitted, number of readmissions per patient, and length of hospital stay during readmissions. #Death.- To be determined by follow-up of each patient. This will be documented in the clinical history and the mortality registries. #Quality of life.- Measured by the Minnesota Living With Heart Failure Questionnaire

ADLs: Basic activities of daily living; IADLs: Instrumental activities of daily living; * Variables to be registered only during the index admission; # Variables to be registered at the index admission and at 6 and 12 months.