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Background: Women tend to access medical help for a myocardial infarction later than men and are at a disproportionate risk of dying or of suffering disability as a consequence. Co-morbidity is associated with delay but little is known how this affects decision making.
Aim: To examine the effect of co-occurring chronic illness or infections on women's interpretation of their symptoms and action at the time of their cardiac event.
Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 44 women admitted to 3 district hospitals following a cardiac event. For the purposes of analysis they were divided into those who arrived at the hospital within 12 h of onset of symptoms (<12 hour group) and those who took more than 12 h (>12 hour group).
Findings: Women utilised their mental records of knowledge and experiences to make sense of their cardiac symptoms. The mental records of the <12 hour group contained knowledge of symptoms and previous experiences relevant to cardiac problems. Those of the >12 hour group contained knowledge and experience of recent and co-occurring chronic illnesses, this provided persuasive 'evidence' to suggest that their symptoms were normal or typical for their current state of health and resulted in delay.
Conclusion: Women's decision making and timely access to medical help at the time of a cardiac event is influenced by their repertoire of knowledge and experience. Interventions need to be designed to capture the process of symptom recognition and the influence of co-morbidity.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ejcnurse.2007.04.002 | DOI Listing |
Eur J Heart Fail
September 2025
Cardiology Department, University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Aims: There is a lack of data from randomized clinical trials comparing treatment outcomes between conduction system pacing (CSP) modalities and biventricular pacing (BVP) in symptomatic patients with refractory atrial fibrillation (AF) scheduled for atrioventricular node ablation (AVNA). The CONDUCT-AF investigates whether CSP is non-inferior to BVP in improving left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) and clinical outcomes in heart failure (HF) patients with symptomatic AF undergoing AVNA.
Methods: This study is an investigator-initiated, prospective, randomized, multicentre clinical trial conducted across 10 European centres, enrolling 82 patients with symptomatic AF, HF with reduced LVEF, and narrow QRS.
Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback
September 2025
Florida State University, Tallahassee, USA.
The explanation for how acutely stressful experiences could result in proximal health outcomes has been lacking in occupational health research. Although scholars have argued that individual personality and affect could worsen health behaviors, we believe that these qualities also could intensify the experience of acute stressors, potentially explaining why acutely stress encounters result in poor health outcomes for some people, but not others. Our study examines three individual differences - worry, negative affect, and positive affect - that are relevant to differential stress anticipation, reactivity, and recovery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFComput Methods Biomech Biomed Engin
September 2025
School of Medicine, Tzu Chi University, Hualien, Taiwan.
This study explores deep feature representations from photoplethysmography (PPG) signals for coronary artery disease (CAD) identification in 80 participants (40 with CAD). Finger PPG signals were processed using multilayer perceptron (MLP) and convolutional neural network (CNN) autoencoders, with performance assessed via 5-fold cross-validation. The CNN autoencoder model achieved the best results (recall 96.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPediatr Crit Care Med
September 2025
Department of Cardiac, Respiratory and Critical Care, Evelina London Children's Hospital, London, United Kingdom.
Objectives: To identify factors associated with death, requirement for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), or cardiac intervention in neonates referred for higher level neonatal ICU (NICU) due to respiratory failure.
Design: Retrospective cohort study, 2018-2020.
Setting: Referrals for transport to tertiary-level NICUs using the London Neonatal Transfer Service in the United Kingdom.
J Neurosurg Anesthesiol
September 2025
Anesthesiology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Background: Carotid blowout syndrome (CBS) is a life-threatening emergency involving the rupture of the carotid arteries and/or branches, often following surgery and radiotherapy for head and neck cancer. Our case series aimed to describe airway management strategies, endovascular and surgical approaches, perioperative resuscitation management, and clinical outcomes in a cohort of patients with CBS at a tertiary referral academic health center.
Methods: We retrospectively identified patients presenting with CBS between 2017 and 2021.