Objective: To study in myocardial infarction (MI) whether documentation of ischaemic symptoms is associated with quality of care and outcomes, and to compare patient reports of ischaemic symptoms during interviews with chart documentation.
Design: Observational acute MI study from 2003 to 2004 (Prospective Registry Evaluating Myocardial Infarction: Event and Recovery).
Setting: 19 diverse US hospitals.
Patients: 2094 consecutive patients with MI (10 911 patients screened; 3953 patients were eligible and enrolled) with both positive cardiac enzymes and other evidence of infarction (eg, symptoms, electrocardiographic changes). Transferred patients and those with confounding non-cardiac comorbidity were not included (n = 1859).
Main outcome measures: Quality of care indicators and adjusted in-hospital survival.
Results: The records of 10% of all patients with MI (217/2094) contained no documented ischaemic symptoms at presentation. Patients without documented symptoms were less likely (p<0.05) to receive aspirin (89% vs 96%) or beta-blockers (77% vs 90%) within 24 hours, reperfusion therapy for ST-elevation MI (7% vs 58%) or to survive their hospitalisation (adjusted odds ratio = 3.2, 95% CI 1.8 to 5.8). Survivors without documented symptoms were also less likely (p<0.05) to be discharged with aspirin (87% vs 93%), beta-blockers (81% vs 91%), ACE/ARB (67% vs 80%), or smoking cessation counselling (46% vs 66%). In the subset of 1356 (65%) interviewed patients, most of those without documented ischaemic symptoms (75%) reported presenting symptoms consistent with ischaemia.
Conclusions: Failure to document patients' presenting MI symptoms is associated with poorer quality of care from admission to discharge, and higher in-hospital mortality. Symptom recognition may represent an important opportunity to improve the quality of MI care.