Association of Marital/Partner Status with Hospital Readmission Among Young Adults With Acute Myocardial Infarction

INTRODUCTION: Despite evidence supporting the benefits of marriage on cardiovascular health, the impact of marital/partner status on the long-term readmission of young acute myocardial infarction (AMI) survivors is less clear. We aimed to examine the association between marital/partner status and 1-year all-cause readmission, and explore sex differences, among young AMI survivors. METHODS: Data were from the VIRGO study (Variation in Recovery: Role of Gender on Outcomes of Young AMI Patients), which enrolled young adults aged 18–55 years with AMI (2008–2012). The primary end point was all-cause readmission within 1 year of hospital discharge, obtained from medical record, patient interviews, and adjudicated by a physician panel. We performed Cox proportional hazards models with sequential adjustment for demographic, socioeconomic, clinical and psychosocial factors. Sex-marital/partner status interaction was also tested. RESULTS: Of the 2,979 adults with AMI (2002 women [67.2%]; mean age 48 [interquartile range, 44–52] years), unpartnered individuals were more likely to experience all-cause readmissions compared with married/partnered individuals within the first year after hospital discharge (34.6% versus 27.2%, hazard ratio [HR]=1.31; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.15–1.49). The association attenuated but remained significant after adjustment for demographic and socioeconomic factors (adjusted HR, 1.16; 95%CI, 1.01–1.34), and was not significant after further adjusting for clinical factors and psychosocial factors (adjusted HR, 1.10; 95%CI, 0.94–1.28). Sex-marital/partner status interaction was not significant (p=0.69). Sensitivity analysis using data with multiple imputation, and restricting outcomes to cardiac readmission yielded comparable results. CONCLUSIONS: In a cohort of young adults aged 18–55 years, unpartnered status was associated with 1.3-fold increased risk of all-cause readmission within 1 year of AMI discharge. Further adjustment for demographic, socioeconomic, clinical and psychosocial factors attenuated the association, suggesting that these factors may explain disparities in readmission between married/partnered versus unpartnered young adults. Whereas young women experienced more readmission compared to similar-aged men, the association between marital/partner status and 1-year readmission did not vary by sex.