Analysis of Machine Learning Models for Heart Disease Prediction and Diagnosis

Abstract

Background: Heart diseases continue to be among the primary causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, highlighting the need for novel diagnostic methods to accurately, early, and economically predict and diagnose heart diseases. Current physical explores upon expert knowledge, possibly missing intricate and non-linear associations between heart disease risk factors. This is where machine learning (ML)methods emerge as promising alternatives for prediction and diagnosis of heart diseases by emphasizing data availability.

Methods: This paper attempts to find out how six popular machine learning algorithms namely, Logistic Regression (LR), Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting (GB), K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN), and eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGB) perform on a publicly available heart disease dataset collected from Kaggle. For better performance and to make them comparable to each other, basic preprocessing techniques have also been implemented. The performance of all these algorithms will be measured by their respective definitions of accuracy, precision, recall, and F1 score.

Result: With an F1-score of 98.52%, Random Forest and XGBoost surpassed other models, yielding a superior accuracy in predictions, measuring 98.53%. The models recorded a perfect level of precision, 100%, coupled with high values of recall, exceeding 97%. Gradient Boosting recorded impressive results, receiving an accuracy score of 93.17%.

Conclusion: The research findings revealed that the Random Forest and XGBoost models are very effective in the prediction and diagnosis of heart disease. These two models have the capacity to support a clinical decision.

Novelty: That is to say, the novelty of this research is that it evaluates multiple machine learning models with comparison to each other. The role of machine learning in enhancing cardiovascular disease diagnosis as well as decision support systems in healthcare and educating and aware the people about heart care and health.