An Analysis of the Effect of Stroke on Health-Related Quality of Life of Older Adults With Coronary Heart Disease Who Take Aspirin

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the impact of coronary heart disease (CHD) on health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among individuals taking aspirin, as well as to explore the potential association between stroke and CHD on HRQoL.

Method: A total of 17,106 respondents aged 50 years and above who reported using aspirin on "some days" or "daily" were included in the analysis. Among them, 4,036 individuals had a history of coronary heart disease. We utilized the Chi-square test to assess the proportion of individuals with CHD who reported poor self-rated health and experienced poor HRQoL in four domains: physical health, mental health, physical and mental health combined, and the number of days limited by poor health. Logistic regression was employed to investigate the interaction between stroke and CHD concerning the quality of life.

Result: Among adults aged 50 years and above using aspirin, those with CHD tended to be older (68.7 years ± 0.37 vs 66.6 ± 0.24), had a higher proportion of male respondents (60.0% vs 45.1%), and were mostly of white ethnicity (77.4% vs 76.2%). The group with CHD reported significantly poorer self-rated health compared to those without CHD (52.1% vs 25.6%, p<0.001), along with a higher prevalence of poor physical health (55.3% vs 42.7%, p<0.001) and poor mental health (50.2% vs 40.4%, p = 0.033) in comparison to aspirin users without CHD. However, there was no statistically significant association between stroke and CHD concerning the impact on all domains of quality of life (p>0.05).

Conclusion: Our findings indicate that individuals aged 50 years and above with CHD who are using aspirin experience a lower quality of life in both the physical and mental health domains when compared to their counterparts without CHD. Furthermore, there was no significant interaction between stroke and CHD in relation to the impact on HRQoL in this study.

Keywords: aspirin; chd; coronary heart disease; health-related quality of life; hrqol; mental health; physical health; quality of life; respondents; stroke.

Figure 1. Forest plot of the interaction analysis of stroke and aspirin on quality of life.

*Adjusted for sex, race, education, employment status, BMI, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and smoking status. michd: myocardial infarction/coronary heart disease, michd +: myocardial infarction/coronary heart disease alone, stroke +: stroke alone, michd + stroke +: interaction term of myocardial infarction/coronary heart disease and stroke, CHD: coronary heart disease.