The association between anxiety disorders and in‐hospital outcomes in patients with myocardial infarction

BACKGROUND: Anxiety disorders are prevalent in patients with myocardial infarction (MI), but the effects of anxiety disorders on in-hospital outcomes within MI patients have not been well studied. HYPOTHESIS: To examine the effects of concurrent anxiety disorders on in-hospital outcomes in MI patients. METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study in patients with a principal diagnosis of MI with and without anxiety disorders in the National Inpatient Sample 2016. A total of 129 305 primary hospitalizations for acute MI, 35 237 with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), and 94 068 with non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) were identified. Of these, 13 112 (10.1%) had anxiety (7.9% in STEMI and 11.0% in NSTEMI). We compared outcomes of anxiety and nonanxiety groups after propensity score matching for the patient and hospital demographics and relevant comorbidities. RESULTS: After propensity score matching, the anxiety group had a lower incidence of in-hospital mortality (3.0% vs 4.4%, P < .001), cardiac arrest (2.1% vs 2.8%, P < .001), cardiogenic shock (4.9% vs 5.6%, P = .007), and ventricular arrhythmia (6.7% vs 7.9%, P < .001) than the nonanxiety group. In the NSTEMI subgroup, the anxiety group had significantly lower rates of in-hospital mortality (2.3% vs 3.5%, P < .001), cardiac arrest (1.1% vs 1.5%, P = .008), and cardiogenic shock (2.8% vs 3.5%, P = .008). In the STEMI subgroup, we found no differences in in-hospital outcomes (all P > .05) between the matched groups. CONCLUSION: Although we found that anxiety was associated with better in-hospital outcomes, subgroup analysis revealed that this only applied to patients admitted for NSTEMI instead of STEMI.