BACKGROUND: The assessment of quality of life (QOL), identifying functional capacity and frequency of angina and other cardiac symptoms, are key issues in the treatment of chronic patients or in those with disease instability. OBJECTIVE: To identify predictors of quality of life (QOL) improvement in patients with non-ST segment elevation acute coronary syndrome (NSTEACS). METHODS: Patients hospitalized in a cardiology reference hospital were assessed with the Seattle Angina Questionnaire (SAQ) at the time of admission and after 6 months. The analyzed outcome was the variation of the QOL score, resulting from the difference between the score after six months and the score at the time of admission. Differences between patients with or without 6-month QOL improvements regarding the demographic, clinical and therapeutic characteristics were assessed by univariate and multivariate analysis. RESULTS: Hypertensive patients presented lower improvement in QOL scores when compared to non-hypertensive ones [8,3(0-25) vs. 16,6(0-33,3); P=0,05], as well as patients with dyslipidemia, when compared to non-dyslipidemic ones [8,3(0-25) vs. 16,6(0-33,3); P=0,02]. Patients with unstable angina presented greater improvements in QOL in relation to those with NSTE myocardial infarction [16.6(0-33.3) vs. 8.3(-8,3-25); P=0,03]. By multivariate analysis, myocardial revascularization in the first 30-days was associated with the greater improvement in the QOL score (8.47 points; P=0,005). On the other side, the presence of dyslipidemia at the baseline evaluation was an independent predictor of worse QOL scores (-7.2 points; P=0.01). CONCLUSION: Myocardial revascularization was associated with improvement in the 6-month QOL scores, while dyslipidemia was associated with worse scores.
Coronary arteriosclerosis; quality of life; myocardial revascularization
