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If you've been told that you have heart failure, you may wonder how it will affect your future. You may be worried that heart failure will shorten your life. Or you may prefer not to know how it is going to affect you.

If you do want to find out what studies show about people with heart failure, read on. But remember that everyone is different. We can tell you what's likely to happen to someone with heart failure, but not what will happen to you. And bear in mind that many people with heart failure are treated successfully and live for many years.

Studies vary in their findings. Heart failure is a complicated illness and it's often difficult for doctors to predict what will happen to people who have it.

Things that may affect how well you do are your age, how bad your heart failure is, whether you have other health problems, how well your medicine works for you, whether you remember to take your pills, and whether you make changes in your life that can help you, such as giving up smoking.

When doctors want to know how a condition like heart failure affects people in the long term or whether it shortens lives, they tend to look at how many people with that condition are still alive five years after they were diagnosed.

But we can't be sure how many people with heart failure have died five years after being diagnosed. This is because the figures from studies vary. In these studies, the number of people with heart failure who were still alive after five years ranged from one-quarter to three-quarters.¹

Here are some findings from other studies:

• The chance of dying from heart failure is higher if you have bad heart failure (class IV heart failure). See How heart failure is classified.
• Up to half of all deaths from heart failure happen suddenly (within an hour after symptoms start). The most common cause of death is a type of abnormal heart rhythm called a ventricular arrhythmia. This causes one-quarter to one-half of all deaths.²

Sometimes people who find out they have heart failure feel depressed or anxious. This is a normal reaction to being told you have a serious illness, but you don't have to feel this way. Sometimes it helps to talk to other people who have heart failure. Your doctor may have information about local support groups.

To learn more about depression and how it can be treated, see Feeling depressed.

This information is for educational use only, and is not a substitute for prompt professional medical advice. Readers should always consult a physician or other professional for advice and treatment. ©BMJ Publishing Group Limited 2008. All rights reserved.