Purpose: The aim of the study was to compare healthrelated quality of life (HRQoL) in patients 1, 4 and 12 months after myocardial infarction with regard to (1) differences over time and (2) differences between younger (42–64 years old) and older (65–90 years old) patients.
Methods: A longitudinal, descriptive and comparative design was used for the study, which included 69 younger (39% women) and 79 older (42% women) patients. Data were collected with the SF-36 Health Survey during the period 1999–2001.
Results: Table 1 displays main effects of time and groups. No group-by-time interaction effects emerged. HRQoL increased in younger patients for physical functioning, bodily pain, vitality and social functioning scales between 1 and 4 months, which remained at 12 months. There was also an increase for role-physical and role-emotional scales between 1 and 4 months and a further increase between 4 and 12 months. In older patients the increase for rolephysical, vitality, social functioning and role-emotional scales was found between 1 and 4 months, which remained at 12 months. Moreover, an improvement in the physical functioning scale was found between 4 and 12 months and for the bodily pain scale between 1 and 4 months. An increase for mental health scale in the study group was evident between 4 and 12 months, but when the study group was divided into younger and older patients the change over time disappeared. The general health scale was stable over time. Compared with older patients, younger patients rated higher HRQoL for the physical functioning scale at 1, 4 and 12 months, for the social functioning scale at 1 and 12 months, for the roleemotional scale at 4 and 12 months and for the rolephysical scale at 12 months.
Conclusion: There was an improvement in HRQoL in both younger and older patients, but the improvement was more obvious in younger patients. In addition, younger patients perceived higher HRQoL than older patients in several dimensions and at several points in time. This was most evident at 12 months.
2006. p. s40-s41
6th Annual Spring Meeting of the Working Group on Cardiovascular Nursing of the European Society of Cardiology and the Spring Meeting of the Norwegian National Society of Cardiovascular Nurses Bergen, Norway 5–6 May 2006