Abstract
AIMS: Individuals with a previous stroke face an increased risk of Non-ST-segment myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) and may have a higher associated mortality. However, the impact of inpatient care quality during the NSTEMI admission on long-term outcomes remains unclear. To assess whether there were disparities in care and NSTEMI clinical outcomes between individuals with and without a previous stroke. METHODS AND RESULTS: We analysed 425 274 adults hospitalized between January 2005 and March 2019, with NSTEMI from the UK Myocardial Ischaemia National Audit Project (MINAP) registry, linked with Office for National Statistics mortality reporting. We examined long-term outcomes by previous stroke status and inpatient care quality for patients that survived to discharge using the opportunity-based quality-indicator score (OBQI) score, categorized as 'poor', 'fair', 'good' or 'excellent'. Individuals with previous stroke were older (median age 79 vs. 72 years) and underwent revascularization by PCI (22% vs. 37%) less frequently than those without a previous stroke. The adjusted mortality risk for those with a previous stroke was higher at 30 days (aHR 1.14, 95% CI 1.10, 1.18), 1 year (aHR 1.20, 95% CI 1.17, 1.22) and 10 years (aHR 1.27, 95% CI 1.26 1.29) with higher quality inpatient care associated with lower mortality rates compared with poor care (good: HR 0.86, 95% CI 0.80, 0.92; excellent: HR 0.76, 95% CI 0.71, 0.81). CONCLUSION: Individuals with a previous stroke, experience disparities during inpatient care following NSTEMI and have a higher risk of long-term mortality. Higher quality inpatient care may lead to better long-term survival.