The Impacts of Living Alone in in-Hospital and One-Year Clinical Outcomes after Acute Myocardial Infarction in Korean Patients

Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of living alone for in-hospital and one-year clinical outcome after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in Korean patients. Methods: A total of 1,700 patients who admitted at the Chonnam National University Hospital were analyzed. We divided the patients into two groups by the existence of a spouse or family member that lived together with the patient at the first time of hospital visit due to AMI. The primary endpoint was composed of in-hospital death and cardiac death during one-year clinical follow-up. Secondary end point was other major adverse cardio-cerebral events (MACCE) including non-fatal MI, repeat revascularization, ischemic or hemorrhagic stroke during one-year clinical follow-up. Result: Living alone patient group had higher proportion of Killip class II-IV (34.3% vs. 26.6%, p=0.006) and higher value of high sensitivity C-reactive protein (2.2±4.0 vs. 1.5±3.4 ng/mL, p=0.019) than not living alone group. In-hospital death (8.9 % vs. 5.1%, p=0.010) and one-year cardiac death (7.7% vs. 4.6%, p=0.031) developed more in living alone groups. However, living alone was not an independent prognostic factor for in-hospital death (HR 1.51, 95% CI 0.91-2.52, p=0.113) and one-year cardiac death (HR 1.18, 95% CI 0.59-2.34, p=0.64) after multivariate analysis. Conclusion: Living alone was not an independent prognostic factor for in-hospital and one-year clinical outcome after AMI.