LAY CHD REPRESENTATIONS AND WOMEN'S SELF REFERRAL FOR MI

本应用程序寻求三年的支持，以调查外行人对冠心病（CHD）的认知表征如何导致延迟求医治疗心肌梗死（MI）症状，重点是女性受害者。在一项相关研究中，将对1114名心肌梗死后患者和约777名支持提供者进行访谈。分析将(1)确定院前症状感知、症状归因、自我护理活动、寻求治疗行为和冠心病易感性感知方面的性别差异，以及这些性别差异对急性心肌梗死自我转诊的影响；(2)研究社会影响过程对心脏症状的外行评估的影响，包括在信息寻求、从支持提供者获得的建议以及院前与拥有医疗专业知识的个人互动方面的性别差异；(3)在控制了受害者的年龄、种族、教育程度、既往冠心病知识和经验、社会经济地位、医疗状况、生活安排、社会支持网络和其他个体差异后，确定对急性心肌梗死症状的反应是否存在性别差异。拟议的研究将集中在非冠心病认知表征的差异上，这可能是在心脏病相关症状发作后进行干预的原因。拟议的项目将为护士和其他卫生保健提供者提供基本信息，了解受害者的性别、年龄和其他因素如何影响心脏症状的外行解释。最后，从拟议的项目中获得的知识可能代表了计划护理干预措施的发展至关重要的贡献，这些干预措施旨在促进自我转诊行为，并为有冠心病风险的男女提供最佳的医疗保健。

This application seeks three years of support to investigate how lay people's cognitive representations of coronary heart disease (CHD) contribute to delays in seeking medical are for symptoms of myocardial infarction (MI), with an emphasis on female victims. In a correlational study, 1,114 post-MI patients and approximately 777 support providers will be interviewed. Analyses will (1) identify gender differences in pre- hospital symptom perceptions, symptom attributions, self-care activities, treatment-seeking behaviors, and perceptions of CHD vulnerability and the implications of such gender differences in self-referral for acute MI; (2) examine the impact of social influence processes in the lay evaluation of cardiac symptoms, including gender differences in information- seeking, advice received from support providers, and pre-hospital interactions with individual possessing medical expertise; and (3) determine whether gender differences in the response to acute MI symptoms are manifested even after controlling for victim age, ethnicity, education, prior CHD knowledge and experience, socioeconomic status, medical status, living arrangements, social support network, and other individual differences. The proposed research will focus on differences in lay CHD cognitive representations that may account for intervention after the onset of cardiac-related symptoms. The proposed project will provide fundamental information to nurses and other health care providers about how the lay interpretation of cardiac symptoms is influenced by the victim's gender, age, and other factors. Finally, the knowledge gained from the proposed project is likely to represent a vital contribution in the development of programmatic nursing interventions targeted at the facilitation of self-referral behaviors and the provision of optimal health care to both women and men at risk of CHD.