Death, long-term nursing home placement, and impoverishment after recurrent myocardial infarction

Abstract Study objective To determine whether recurrent myocardial infarction (MI) is associated with increased risk of mortality, long-term nursing home placement, and impoverishment. Design Retrospective cohort study. Setting United States Medicare program. Participants Individuals age > 65 years with recurrent MI hospitalizations (n = 228,826) between January 1, 2007 and June 30, 2017 and controls with initial but not recurrent MI (n = 915,304). Main outcome measures Death, nursing home placement, and impoverishment (Medicaid enrollment or subsidies for low-income and -resource individuals) through December 31, 2017. Results In the recurrent MI and control cohorts, 47% and 41% of individuals were age > 80 years, respectively, and 56% of both cohorts were women. After 1 year, 48% of the recurrent MI cohort and 16% of the control cohort died, 9% and 7% experienced nursing home placement, and 4% and 2% experienced impoverishment. Multivariable-adjusted hazard ratios (95% confidence intervals) comparing the recurrent MI and control cohorts were 2.04 (2.03–2.06) for death, 0.89 (0.88–0.91) for nursing home placement, and 1.32 (1.28–1.36) for impoverishment. Conclusions Older US adults with recurrent MI had higher risk of death and impoverishment than controls who had experienced an initial MI. Unadjusted, recurrent MI was associated with higher risk of nursing home placement; however, after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics and comorbidities, individuals with recurrent MI had slightly lower risk of nursing home placement. Preventing recurrent MI may also reduce the risk of death and impoverishment among older US adults.