Abstract

Background: The severity of angina is related to a reduction in global quality of life (QoL), which may be improved by anti-ischaemic treatment. It is not known, however, whether improvements relate only to physical or also to mental and social domains of QoL and whether women benefit in a similar way to men.

Objectives: To relate improvements in angina severity through anti-ischaemic treatment to physical and mental domains of QoL in elderly men and women and to assess differences in this relation between the sexes.

Methods: Angina severity and full assessment of QoL by structured, self-administered and validated questionnaires were measured prospectively at baseline and after 6 months’ optimal drug or revascularisation treatment in all 301 patients of the Trial of Invasive versus Medical therapy in Elderly (TIME) patients with chronic angina.

Results: At baseline, angina severity correlated significantly with physical domains of QoL (trend test at least p<0.02) and daily activities (p = 0.05). At similar angina levels, women had significantly lower QoL scores than men. With anti-ischaemic treatment, physical as well as mental and social QoL domains and daily activities improved, together with a relief in angina (trend tests at least p<0.02). This was true for women and men and was more pronounced after revascularisation than with medical treatment.

Conclusions: These findings confirm the relation between angina severity and physical limitation. In addition, they show that anti-ischaemic treatment not only relieves angina and improves physical components of QoL but also improves mental and social domains. This is true for women as well as for men despite the lower overall scores for women.