Article Text
Abstract
Objective Older patients presenting with non-ST elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTEACS) require holistic assessment. We carried out a longitudinal cohort study to investigate health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of older, frail adults with NSTEACS undergoing coronary angiography.
Methods 217 consecutive patients aged ≥65 years (mean age 80.9±4.0 years, 60.8% male) with NSTEACS referred for coronary angiography were recruited from two tertiary cardiac centres between November 2012 and December 2015. Frailty was assessed with the Fried Frailty Index; a score of 0 was characterised as robust, 1–2 prefrail and ≥3 frail. The Short Form Survey 36 (SF-36), an HRQoL tool consisting of eight domains spanning physical and mental health, was performed at baseline and 1 year.
Results 186 patients (85.7%) had invasive revascularisation. At baseline, 52 (23.9%) patients were frail and 121 (55.8%) were prefrail, with most SF-36 domains falling below the norm-population mean. Patients with frailty had lower mean scores in all physical SF-36 domains (p≤0.05) compared with those without frailty. Robust patients had temporal improvement in two domains (role physical +5.80 (95% CI 1.31 to 10.3) and role emotional +6.46 (95% CI 1.02 to 11.9)) versus patients with frailty and prefrailty, who had a collective improvement in a greater number of physical and psychological domains at 1 year (2 domains vs 11 domains), notably role physical (prefrail +6.53 (95% CI 3.85 to 9.20) and frail +10.4 (95% CI 6.7814.1)).
Conclusions Frail older adults with NSTEACS have poor HRQoL. One year following invasive management, there are modest improvements in HRQoL, most marked in frail and prefrail patients, who received a proportionally larger benefit than robust patients.
Trial registration number NCT01933581.
- acute coronary syndrome
- atherosclerosis
- percutaneous coronary intervention
Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. The study was conducted prior to 2019. Data can be shared following approval from the study sponsor.
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Data availability statement
Data are available upon reasonable request. The study was conducted prior to 2019. Data can be shared following approval from the study sponsor.
Footnotes
Contributors BB wrote the original manuscript, was involved in data curation, performed formal analysis and was involved in manuscript review and editing. DC contributed to the original manuscript and was involved in manuscript review and editing. GM contributed to manuscript review and editing. JA-H was involved in data collection and investigation and contributed to manuscript review and editing. CW was involved in manuscript review and editing. VK conceptualised the study and is responsible for the overall content, and was involved in supervision, project administration, funding acquisition and manuscript review and editing.
Funding The research is supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Newcastle Biomedical Research Centre based at Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Newcastle University. VK has received research funding from the British Heart Foundation (CS/15/7/31679). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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