OBJECTIVES : Myocardial infarction (MI) is a burdensome disease, which despite available treatment improvements still imposes high health care costs mainly due to recurrent cardiovascular events requiring costly hospitalizations. Guidelines recommend prescription of secondary preventive drugs post-MI to prevent new cardiovascular events, thus reducing hospitalizations and associated costs. However, to what extent patients do collect the prescribed drugs is not well investigated. The aim of this study was to examine the rates of pharmacy-collected secondary preventive drugs for MI patients with hospital prescription of such drugs.

METHODS : All patients ≤80 years registered in the Norwegian Myocardial Infarction Registry (NORMI) with acute MI between 2013 and 2016, and who were alive >6 months post-MI were included. Data on prescribed drugs and pharmacy collected drugs were retrieved from NORMI and the national Norwegian Prescription Database, respectively.

RESULTS : A total of 31,082 patients were included; 22,479 (72%) men and 8,603 (28%) women, with a respective mean age of 63 (+/- 11) and 66 (+/- 10) years. Coronary angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention were recorded for 26,374 (85%) and 19,867 (64%), respectively. At discharge, 94% of the patients were prescribed acetylsalicylic acid (ASA), 84% dual antiplatelet therapy (DAPT), 87% statins, 68% beta-blockers, and 37% ACE/AII inhibitors. The rates of pharmacy collection within 6 months in these patients were 97 per 100 patients for statins and beta-blockers, 96 per 100 patients for ACE /AII inhibitors and ASA, and 91 per 100 patients for DAPT.

CONCLUSIONS : The majority of patients with MI were prescribed guideline-recommended secondary preventive drugs at hospital discharge. Adherence to prescription was high, as almost all patients collected their prescribed drugs at the pharmacy. These findings underscore the importance of guideline-driven prescriptions at discharge from hospital to prevent new events, and thus reduce number of hospitalizations and costs.