AGENTS CONNECTION WITH AWARENESS AND ACT OF PATIENTS THAT CAUSED ACUTE MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION ENCOUNTERING WITH CLINICAL SYMPTOMS THEM TO STAY IN URMIA HOSPITALS

Every year fifteen to seventeen million people die from heart diseases around
the world. In Iran, about seventy percent of these deaths are caused by a heart attack. The symptoms
before a heart attack are diverse; however, the patients are not very aware of preventing or treating
heart attacks. The objective of this study was to investigate the factors related to the disease awareness
and performance of patients with heart attack.
Materials & Methods: This descriptive-analytical study was carried out on 148 patients diagnosed
with acute myocardial infarction being hospitalized in Urmia hospitals. The available sampling
method was used the data were analyzed using statistical methods.
Results: Married and literate males who were in above-fifty-age group were the dominant subjects.
Most of the patients were taking either cardiac, diabetic, or digestive drugs. There was a significant
relationship between literacy, age, suffering a heart attack, and other controllable diseases in on-time
referring to a hospital (p<0.03). Most of the subjects (79.1%) were not aware of the symptoms before
a heart attack. Nearly half of them (51.49%) visited a general practitioner first. Before the attack, most
of the subjects had sweating (78.4%) and chest pain (77.7%) which occurred during the day or night.
The delay for receiving treatment was mostly caused by the lack of awareness of the symptoms.
Conclusion: The current study showed that the more the patients know about the symptoms of acute
myocardial infarction, the less time is spent before referring to receive help from a medical center. It is
recommended to enhance the public awareness through mass media that plays an important role in
transferring information.