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October 28, 2015
Young Women Less Likely to Use Medications
After Heart Attack Vancouver, British Columbia—After a heart attack, young women are less likely than their male counterparts to be prescribed medication and less likely to fill it even if they receive a prescription. That’s according to research published recently in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Background information in the study, which was led by researchers from the University of British Columbia, notes that ACE inhibitors, beta-blockers and statins are recommended for both male and female heart attack survivors to prevent future cardiac events. “There are two possible reasons why women take fewer cardiovascular medications than men in an outpatient setting,” said lead author Kate Smolina, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in pharmacoepidemiology and pharmaceutical policy at the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research at the Canadian university. “It is either a consequence of physicians' prescribing behavior, or patients not taking their prescribed medication, or both.” For the study, the researchers analyzed British Columbia data on more than 12,000 heart attack patients between 2007 and 2009 who survived for at least a year. Results indicate that, after hospital discharge, only one-third of all heart attack survivors filled all of the appropriate prescriptions for at least 80% of the year. The rate was lowest among women under the age of 55; only 65% initiated their treatment on all appropriate drugs after a heart attack, compared to 75% of men in the same age group. Once on therapy, however, men and women had similar adherence rates, according to the study. “The gender gap in treatment initiation among younger women is an important finding because younger women have much worse outcomes after suffering a heart attack than do men of the same age,” said co-author Karin Humphries, MBA, DSc, associate professor of cardiology at the University of British Columbia. “This finding suggests that younger women should be treated aggressively, especially when we have medications that work.” The study was unable to determine whether physician prescribing practices or patient behavior was the biggest contributor to lower medication use by younger female heart attack patients, but the authors emphasize that the issue requires more focus. “The majority of AMI survivors either discontinue treatment or do not refill their prescriptions consistently,” the study concludes. “Women <55 years are significantly less likely to be on optimal therapy by the end of 1 year after discharge, which is driven by a sex disparity in treatment initiation and not treatment adherence.” “It is important for both physicians and patients to move away from the traditional thinking that heart disease is a man’s disease,” Smolina added in an American Heart Association press release. “Heart disease in young women has only recently received research attention, so it is possible that physicians and patients still have the incorrect perception that these heart medications pose risks to younger women.”
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