Introduction:
Despite a dramatic increase in the incidence of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in China, little is known about patient’s health status in the year following discharge. We studied the change in angina frequency and angina-related quality of life at 1 year after AMI among Chinese patients.
Methods:
Among 3,336 patients admitted for AMI to 53 hospitals from December 2012 to May 2014 in the China PEACE Prospective Study of Acute Myocardial Infarction, Angina frequency and angina-related quality of life were assessed with the Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) at the time of hospitalization and 1 year later. Scores ranged from 0 to 100 points, with higher scores indicating fewer symptoms and better quality of life. We categorized both 1-year scores and changes in scores to support clinical interpretability. We considered a clinically poor outcome at 1 year to be an angina frequency score ≤ 60 (daily/weekly angina) or quality of life score ≤ 50 (poor/fair quality of life). A 1-year change in score ≥ 5 was improvement, a change between -5 and 5 was interpreted as no change, and ≤ -5 was interpreted as being significantly worse at 1 year than before the AMI.
Results:
Participants’ average age was 60.6 years (±11.9) and 22.8% were women. The response rate was about 75% and non-responders had similar characteristics compared with responders. At baseline, the mean scores were 86.3±21.9 for angina frequency and 66.7±24.0 for quality of life, with 16.3% having daily/weekly angina and 38.8% poor quality of life. One year later, 36.3% of patients had had a clinically important improvement in angina, 49.0% had no change, and 14.7% had worse symptoms. Similarly, 52.7% experienced a clinically important improvement in quality of life, 18.2% had no change, and 29.1% had worse quality of life. At 1 year after AMI, 5.5% of patients still had severe angina symptoms and 20.9% had poor quality of life.
Conclusion:
There is substantial variability in Chinese patients’ symptom and quality of life recovery after AMI and more work is needed to understand the causes of this variability and how best to improve symptoms and quality of life after AMI in China.
Effects of a 12-Week Hatha Yoga Intervention on Metabolic Risk and Quality of Life in Hong Kong Chinese Adults with and without Metabolic Syndrome
