TY - JOUR T1 - Use of statins and beta-blockers after acute myocardial infarction according to income and education JF - Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health JO - J Epidemiol Community Health SP - 1091 LP - 1097 DO - 10.1136/jech.2006.055525 VL - 61 IS - 12 AU - Jeppe N Rasmussen AU - Gunnar H Gislason AU - Søren Rasmussen AU - Steen Z Abildstrom AU - Tina K Schramm AU - Lars Køber AU - Finn Diderichsen AU - Merete Osler AU - Christian Torp-Pedersen AU - Mette Madsen Y1 - 2007/12/01 UR - http://jech.bmj.com/content/61/12/1091.abstract N2 - Objective: To study the initiation of and long-term refill persistency with statins and beta-blockers after acute myocardial infarction (AMI) according to income and education.Design and setting: Linkage of individuals through national registers of hospitalisations, drug dispensation, income and education.Participants: 30 078 patients aged 30–74 years surviving first hospitalisation for AMI in Denmark between 1995 and 2001.Main outcome measures: Initiation of statin or beta-blocker treatment (out-patient claim of prescriptions within 6 months of discharge) and refill persistency (first break in treatment lasting at least 90 days, and re-initiation of treatment after a break).Results: When simultaneously estimating the effect of income and education on initiation of treatment, the effect of education attenuated and a clear income gradient remained for both drugs. Among patients aged 30–64 years, high income (adjusted hazard ratio (HR) 1.27; 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.19–1.35) and medium income (HR 1.13; 95% CI 1.06–1.20) was associated with initiation of statin treatment compared with low income. The risk of break in statin treatment was lower for patients with high (HR 0.73; 95% CI 0.66–0.82) and medium (HR 0.82; 95% CI 0.74–0.92) income compared with low income, whereas there was a trend in the opposite direction concerning a break in beta-blocker treatment. There was no gradient in re-initiation of treatment.Conclusion: Patients with low compared with high income less frequently initiated preventive treatment post-AMI, had worse long-term persistency with statins, but tended to have better persistency with beta-blockers. Low income by itself seems not to be associated with poor long-term refill persistency post-AMI. ER -