Objective: Disability increases mortality in patients with myocardial infarction in acute clinical settings, but the impact of disability on mortality in persons with coronary heart disease (CHD) at the population level is largely unknown.
Study design and setting: We assessed disability as a predictor of mortality among 4,501 men and women aged 45 and over in a national sample of the Finnish population, examined in 1978-1980.
Results: During follow-up until the end of 1994, 897 men and 846 women died. Disability was related to increased all-cause and CHD mortality after adjustment for cardiovascular risk factors in men regardless of baseline CHD status. In women with CHD at baseline, disability was not related to excess mortality, although disability predicted mortality in women without baseline CHD.
Conclusion: Disability predicts mortality in men with CHD, but not in women. This may reflect a gender difference in the nature of CHD, but these findings need to be verified in other large-scale population studies.