According to a French study, patients who have already had a heart attack do not call a doctor or emergency services any faster when they have a new heart attack.
Of the 120,000 people who have a myocardial infarction each year in France, around 10% die within an hour. Considering the medical urgency of such an episode, it is necessary to know the warning signs: it is a sharp and persistent pain in the chest, which radiates to the left arm, back and jaw. . Can also occur discomfort, nausea, dizziness.
And obviously, the French do not know these warning signs. More surprisingly, even patients who have already had a myocardial infarction do not call a doctor or emergency services any faster! This is the observation made by the authors of the FAST-MI 2010 study, the results of which were presented this Friday at the European Days of the French Society of Cardiology (SFC) in Paris.
75 minutes to call
Doctors studied the cases of 2,364 patients who had a heart attack, of which 382 had a recurrence. The time between the onset of symptoms and the first call was a median of 75 minutes, whether or not patients had already had a heart attack, reports the Medical Press Agency (APM).
“We could have hoped that a patient who has already had a heart attack would call for help more quickly when a new event occurs, either because he has experienced the symptoms or because he has received education to recognize them. by his doctor. However, this is not the case, ”commented Dr Etienne Puymirat from the Georges-Pompidou European Hospital (HEGP) in Paris and his colleagues.
Coronary patients need to be more educated
In detail, the proportion of patients who called within an hour was 48% in patients with a history of infarction, and 47% in those with no history. Similarly, the proportion who called within two hours was 66% and 63% respectively.
Last observation of the researchers, the results were similar taking a criterion broader than the history of infarction (history of cardiovascular, coronary, cerebrovascular or peripheral vascular disease).
The authors conclude that, “Cardiologists need to spend more time educating coronary patients on how to recognize symptoms of myocardial infarction. “
.
