TUESDAY, June 12, 2018 (HealthDay News) — Patients with an adverse change in employment after myocardial infarction (MI) have increased likelihood of worse outcomes, according to a study published online June 12 in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.
Haider J. Warraich, M.D., from the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N.C., and colleagues examined employment status at baseline and one year among 9,319 patients with MI enrolled at 233 U.S. hospitals. An adverse change in employment was defined as patients working at baseline but working less or not working at one year post-MI.
The researchers found that 51 percent of patients were employed at the time of MI. Ten percent of these reported an adverse change in employment by one year post-MI, with 3 and 7 percent working less and no longer working, respectively. A number of unplanned readmissions, post-discharge bleeding complications, hypertension, and smoking were factors significantly associated with adverse change in employment. There was an increased likelihood of reporting depression, lower health status, and moderate-to-extreme financial hardship with medication costs at one year for patients with an adverse change in employment.
“Patients who experienced an adverse change in employment after MI reported lower quality of life, increased depression, and more difficulty affording medications,” the authors write. “These results underscore the need for interventions to address this patient-centered outcome and its health impact.”
Several authors disclosed financial ties to pharmaceutical companies, including Lilly, which provided funding for the study, as did Daiichi Sankyo.
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