Why the study?
Insights regarding differences in clinical outcomes, quality of life, and health resource utilisation among post-acute myocardial infarction populations in rural versus urban settings are limited.
Does living in rural areas compared to urban areas affect health resource utilisation, quality of life, and clinical outcomes in stable post-AMI patients?
Does living in rural areas compared to urban areas affect health resource utilisation, quality of life, and clinical outcomes in stable post-AMI patients?
In stable post-AMI patients, living in rural areas is associated with lower healthcare resource utilization but similar long-term clinical outcomes and quality of life compared to urban areas.
Rural post-AMI patients had lower utilization without worse outcomes; leaves open whether this reflects appropriate care or unmeasured access factors.
BACKGROUND: Insights on the differences in clinical outcomes, quality of life (QoL) and health resource utilisation (HRU) with different levels of care available to post-acute myocardial infarction (AMI) populations in rural and urban settings are limited. METHODS: The long-Term rIsk, clinical manaGement, and healthcare Resource utilisation of stable coronary artery dISease (TIGRIS), a prospective, observational registry, enrolled 8452 patients aged ≥50 years 1-3 years post-AMI from June 2013 to November 2014 from 24 countries in Asia Pacific/Australia, Europe, North America and South America. Differences in QoL (measured using the EuroQol Research Foundation instrument) and HRU between patients in rural and urban settings were evaluated in this post hoc analysis. The incidence of clinical endpoints (cardiovascular (CV) death, AMI, unstable angina with urgent revascularisation and stroke; bleeding; and all-cause mortality) was analysed. Data were collected at baseline and every 6 months for 24 months. RESULTS: There were fewer hospitalisations and visits to general practitioners (GPs) and cardiologists in the rural versus urban populations (adjusted event rate ratio (ERR)=0.90 (95% CI, 0.82 to 1.00, p=0.04); ERR=0.84 (95% CI, 0.78 to 0.92, p<0.001); ERR=0.86 (95% CI, 0.81 to 0.92, p<0.001), respectively). No statistically significant differences were observed between rural and urban populations in all-cause death, AMI, unstable angina with urgent revascularisation, CV death, stroke, major bleeding events and health-related QoL. The adjusted incidence rate ratio was 0.92 (95% CI, 0.74 to 1.15) for the composite of CV death, AMI and stroke. CONCLUSIONS: Living in rural areas was associated with fewer GP/cardiologist visits and hospitalisations; no significant differences in clinical outcomes and QoL were observed. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: NCT01866904.
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Nicolau et al. (2023) studied this question.
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