Residential Move After a Heart Attack Raises Risk for Death

 Moving from one residence to another after an acute myocardial infarction (AMI) significantly increases the risk for death or transition to a long-term care facility as an end-of-life measure, data suggest.

In a prospective study that followed more than 3000 patients with AMI over two decades, each residential move was associated with a 12% higher rate of death.

Dr David Alter

"This study determined that residential mobility was more important than any other social factor that we studied," investigator David Alter, MD, PhD, chair of cardiovascular and metabolic research at the University Health Network–Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and associate professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, told Medscape Medical News.

The results were published online September 17 in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology.

Moving and Mortality

"There's been very little work, surprisingly, on what happens when individuals move from community to community," said Alter. "It is that movement from community to community that is a factor within the social context that needs to be explored better. To the best of our knowledge, up until our study, it has been studied very briefly in the literature."

The prospective cohort study sample included 3369 patients who had an AMI between December 1, 1999, and March 30, 2023. The investigators followed participants until death or the last available follow-up date of March 30, 2020. They defined a residential move as a relocation from one postal code region to another.

The investigators drew data from multiple sources, including the prospective, observational Socio-Economic Status and Acute Myocardial Infarction study, which encompassed more than 35,000 patient life-years following hospitalization for a first heart attack in Ontario. Mortality data were collected from the Ontario Registered Persons Data Base. Other sources included Statistics Canada for information on neighborhood income, the Canadian Institutes for Health Information for patients' clinical factors and comorbidities, and the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) database for physician visits. Information on long-term care admissions came from the Continuous Care Reporting System-Long Term Care, OHIP, and the Ontario Drugs Benefit databases, the latter of which also provided information on medication prescriptions for individuals aged 65 years and older.

Patients' ages ranged from 19 to 101 years (median age, 65 years). Sixty-nine percent of patients were men. Of the study population, 1828 patients (54.3%) had at least one residential move during the study period. Approximately 87% died in the community or moved from home into a long-term care facility as an end-of-life destination. Overall, 84.8% of patients who were admitted to long-term care facilities died.

The study also tracked the socioeconomic status of persons living in the postal code regions from and to which patients moved. About 32% of patients moved to a neighborhood with a lower socioeconomic status, and 30.5% moved to an area with a higher socioeconomic status.

Each residential move was associated with a 12% higher rate of death and a 26% higher rate of long-term institutionalization for end-of-life care. In unadjusted analyses, the rate of death was almost double for those who moved more frequently: 44.3% for those who moved two or more times, vs 24.8% for those who moved once in 10 years.

Accounting for a multitude of variables, such as the socioeconomic status of areas that patients moved between, is a strength of the study, said Alter. But the study lacked information about why people moved.

"Where this study has a huge amount of strength is that it was designed specifically to really understand a patient's clinical and psychosocial profile at the start of their journey, their first AMI. But the fact that we took it from heart attack onward is also a strength because it characterizes and anchors a clinical context in which we were following patients out," said Alter.

"An Important Marker"

Commenting on the findings for Medscape, Paul Oh, MD, medical director of the cardiovascular disease prevention and rehabilitation program at University Health Network, said, "This is a very well-designed study and analysis from a cohort that has provided important insights about the role of socioeconomic factors and long-term outcomes post MI [myocardial infarction] over many years." Oh did not participate in the study.

Dr Paul Oh

"A few covariates that could impact on outcomes, like institutionalization, were not available to include in adjusted analyses — eg, functional status, frailty, mild cognitive changes, and availability of social supports in the home," he said.

The findings add another variable that cardiologists who care for post-MI patients need to be aware of, Oh added. "Clinicians need better awareness that the need to change residence is an important marker of changing health status and may portend end-of-life events in the near future. The need to change residence can signal an important change in physical, cognitive, and social circumstances that needs to be further explored during clinical encounters, with the goal of identifying and addressing any potentially reversible issues and identifying additional supports that may help that individual continue to live independently in their own home."

The study was supported by ICES, which receives funding from the Ontario Ministry of Health. The investigators have disclosed no relevant financial relationships. Oh serves on research boards for Lilly and Novartis and receives research funding from Apple.

Can J Cardiol. Published September 17, 2023. Abstract

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/996952