SummaryBackground: Factors related to socioeconomic status and health care quality and management may influence mortality and morbidity rates due to acute myocardial infarction (AMI).Objective: To compare mortality and morbidity in patients with AMI hospitalized in public and private hospitals.Methods: An observational study, with comparison groups. Clinical evaluation on admission, and recording of diagnostic, therapeutic and evolution data until discharge or death. Comparison of clinical characteristics by univariate analysis followed by bivariate analysis, evaluating the combination of predictors with death and morbidity (Killip> I), SPSS, version 13.0.
Results
IntroductionAcute myocardial infarction (AMI) is the main complication of CAD 1 . The mortality and morbidity from AMI depends on factors related to the severity of the disease and the speed and quality of hospital care. If the patient receives appropriate hospital care within few hours after onset of the symptoms, the mortality worldwide is around 10% 2, similar to that observed in the hospitals of the cities of Rio de Janeiro (10.8%) and Niterói (12.3%) 3,4 . However, this percentage may not reflect the reality when there are factors such as delay between the onset of pain and arrival at the hospital, delay in the start of in-hospital treatment, restrictions on the use of myocardial protection measures, such as primary angioplasty and thrombolytics, and on access to intensive care unit 2,5 . In addition, the social strata of lower income and education show a more serious natural history of CAD, with the possibility of higher mortality and morbidity in the first 28 days post-AMI 6,7 . Although the reasons for this are not well defined, it is noteworthy that public health care units, such as hospitals and health care centers, do not always have a specialized staff for emergency cardiovascular care, there is scarcity of certain drugs, such as thrombolytics, and there are insufficient number of beds in ICU to meet local demand, and these are issues that have an important influence on the prognosis of the disease. Other factors like limited access to a specialized hospital or outpatient care unit of better quality, and limitations on the maintenance of appropriate preventive measures of primary or secondary type have also been considered 5-7 .In Bahia, there are serious limitations on high complexity cardiovascular care in the public system, which needs to be reviewed, aiming at a recasting of the system. The city of Feira de Santana, with 600,000 inhabitants, the largest city of inland Bahia State, has only one public hospital and three private hospitals with intensive care units, where all the cardiological care of the region takes place, creating favorable conditions for the study of these issues. Therefore, the assessment of the mortality and morbidity in the hospital phase of AMI, the coronary risk profile of public and private patients, and the quality of health care in that city can provide relevant data to help correct these serious distortions i...