For the study, researchers surveyed 3,437 heart attack patients aged 18 to 55 years both one month and one year after hospitalization. One in three survey participants reported financial barriers to healthcare services and about one in five reported financial barriers to medication. Patients who reported financial difficulties were more likely to report higher levels of depression, lower quality of life and higher stress one year after surgery than their more affluent counterparts. Women were more likely than men to report financial barriers, though the impact of these barriers on patients did not vary by gender.
“Our study emphasizes that patients need us to think about their social needs, not just their clinical symptoms,” said senior author Erica Spatz, MD, assistant professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven. “We have not completed our job if we discharge patients from the hospital and recommend they use medications or services like cardiac rehab that they cannot afford.”
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