Quality of life is significantly lower in the first month following an acute myocardial infarction compared to the subsequent 1-12 months, and is worse in older patients and those with comorbidities.
Introduction: Acute myocardial infarction is a common and urgent disease with potentially poor prognosis, so the examination of the quality of life of diseased and all factors that affect it are very important. Objective of the paper is to examine the impact of the characteristics of the health issues, thelength of time since the myocardial infarction as well as the comorbidity to the quality of life of diseased of myocardial infarction. Methods: In order to assess the impact of acute myocardial infarction on the quality of life of diseased, a retrospectiveprospective study was conducted, designed as a cross sectional study. The followingwas used during the research: sociodemographic questionnaire, questionnaire for assessment of health status, comorbidity and characteristics of health issues of patients and Short Form 36 Health Survey, i.e. SF-36. Statistical analysis of data was made using the SPSS software statistical program. Results: The study covered 175 subjects, of which 113 (64.6%) were male and 62 (35.4%) female. In relation to the time of diagnosis of AMI in 29.7% of subjects, the diagnosis was set in the last month, while in the remaining 70.3% it was diagnosed in the last year to a month. The highest number of respondents (68.6%) felt a strong pain before reporting to a healthinstitution for treatment, 63.4% of the respondents had cardiovascular comorbidity and the highest number of respondents (83.4%) has diagnosed arterial hypertension. Physical functioning (65.48: 81.42) (t = -6.841; p = 0.001), limitation due to physical health (51.44: 76.62) (t = -7.364; p = 0.001), the presence of bodily pains (35.88: 57.05) (t = - 7.943; p = 0.001), general health (59.04: 75.75) (t = -7.277; p = 0,001), vitality (52.78: 56.99) (t = -4.796; p = 0.001), social functioning (39.42: 63.31) (t = -7.099; p = 0.001), limitation due to emotional problems (33.97: 61.51) = -6.693; p = 0.001) and mental health (36.69: 53.97) (t = -7.714; p = 0.001) are domains in which there is a high statistically significant difference in mean values between groups of subjects compared to the time of diagnosis, whereby respondents which diagnosis was set in the last year to a month have statistically significantly better quality of health compared to those which diagnosis was set in the last month. When it comes to a common measure of physical health and mental health, a group of subjects diagnosed in the last year to a month also showed statistically significantly better results than respondents in whom AMI diagnosis was found in the last month (t = -4.152; p = 0.001; t = -7.147; p = 0.001). Discussion: The quality of life related to health is significantly lower in subjects diagnosed with AMI in the last month compared to respondents who have been diagnosed in the last year to a month and between groups of subjects of different sexes there is no statistically significant difference in any of the quality life domains related to health. When it comes to the age of respondents, HRQOL is significantly higher in all domains of physical and mental health in the younger group of respondents. Conclusion: Myocardial infarction affects the quality of life of the diseased,which is significantly better in the younger age group compared to the older respondents, and does not differ in relation to gender. The quality of life of patients with myocardial infarction differs in relation to the time since myocardial infarction and those diagnosed with AMIduring the reception to the hospital in the last month have significantly lower quality of life compared to subjects with AMI diagnosed in the last year to a month. The quality of life of patients with myocardial infarction is worse if the health issues are more expressed and there is comorbidity.
Kulić et al. (Sat,) studied this question.