Women Fare Worse After Heart Attack

Compared with their male counterparts, women ages 55 and younger are more likely to have poor health status outcomes after an acute heart attack, according to new research presented Monday at the American Heart Association’s 2014 Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions in Baltimore.

“Healthcare providers should be vigilant of the fact that young women following a heart attack represent a high-risk cohort with a poorer quality of life and worse daily functioning at one year compared with similar aged men,” said first author Rachel P. Dreyer, PhD, a post-doctoral research associate in cardiovascular medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., and spokesperson for the American Heart Association. “These women appear to start off with a poor health status after their heart attack and remain poor at 12 months.”
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Dreyer and her colleagues used data from the VIRGO study (Variation in Recovery: Role of Gender on Outcomes of Young Acute Myocardial Infarction Patients), analyzing the records and interviews of about 3,500 patients in the United States and Spain who had heart attacks from 2008 to 2012.

About two-thirds (67%) were women. Compared to their male counterparts, they were more likely to present with diabetes (39% vs. 27%), obesity (51% vs. 45%), stroke (5% vs. 2%), heart failure (5% vs. 2%), lung disease (13% vs. 5%), and depression (48% vs. 24%).

One year after their heart attack, women were more likely than men to have:

• Poorer physical functioning.

• Poorer mental functioning.

• Lower quality of life.

• More chest pain.

• Worse physical limitations.

The researchers say that potential reasons for young women’s poorer long-term health status outcomes may be due pre-existing conditions and a range of socio-demographic, clinical, and biological causes, such as undetected chest pain and associated symptoms, problems with access to care, lower social supports, and an increase in work/life responsibilities that may impact women’s health.

“Although we cannot make definite conclusions based on this data, it may indicate that we need to target the pre-event setting to identify high-risk women early on,” Dreyer said. “This may necessitate public health policies, which specifically address risk factors and education in this young female group.”

Dreyer and her team at Yale are conducting intensive research focused on this young female cohort. “With the VIRGO data we are examining why young women have poorer outcomes compared with men, with the end goal in developing targets for sex-specific interventions to improve young women’s recovery,” she said.

 —Colleen Mullarkey

Reference

Dreyer RP. “Long-Term Health Status Outcomes in Young Women with Acute Heart Attack: Results from the VIRGO Study.” Presented at: Quality of Care and Outcomes Research Scientific Sessions 2014, Baltimore, Md. June 2, 2014.