BACKGROUND: There is great scientific interest with respect to socioeconomic status and population health, and several studies have shown the influence of these variables on clinical outcome of patients. The present study assesses the influence of income on the distribution of risk factors, clinical and angiographic characteristics in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. METHOD: Patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention in a tertiary center from December 2007 to March 2008 were prospectively included. The information on income was directly collected from the patient by one of the investigators. In this analysis, subjects were divided into quartiles according to their respective monthly income. RESULTS: Four hundred patients with mean age of 61.01 ± 10.36 years, 64.7% males and 24.6% diabetics were included. A majority had stable angina (54.9%), and there were no differences between groups regarding comorbidities. Income was associated with the percentage of male patients (48% in the first quartile vs. 81.3% in the last quartile; P < 0.001), the weight and height (P < 0.05), but there was no association with mean body mass index. We also observed a significant association between income and use of drug-eluting stents with the following rates from first to fourth quartile: 0, 1%, 1.9% and 7.7% (P = 0.003). CONCLUSION: In this study, there was an association between income and gender, anthropometric characteristics and use of drug-eluting stents. There was no association between income and risk factors, medical history and angiographic characteristics of patients.
Income; Angioplasty; Stents; Social inequity
