engleski

Illness perception and cardiovascular risk faktors in myocardial infarction patients: Is there any relations?

Aims and purpose: To investigate illness perception of myocardial infarction (MI) patients and its association with the patients' cardiovascular risk (CVR) factors. Design and Methods: Cross-sectional study was carried out in 94 MI patients in three Croatian family medicine practices. Patients filled two questionnaires: on patients’ general data and the brief illness perception questionnaire (IPQ-B). Included CVR factors data were: fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, LDL and HDL cholesterol, and blood pressure. Statistic analysis was done using Statistica, version 7.1 statistic program, and values P<0.05 were considered statistically significant. Results: The patients’ average age was 61, 6±10, 1 years (M±SD), and average time after MI was 6, 2±5, 3 years (M±SD). Distribution of patients illness perception scores (on 0-10 Thurston scale) showed high scores for timeline (9, 0±1, 9) (M±SD), treatment control (7, 5±2, 1) (M±SD) and illness coherence (6, 9±2, 9) (M±SD), and moderately high scores for personal control (6, 4±2, 4) (M±SD), consequences (6, 0±2, 8) (M±SD), concern (5, 7±3, 1) (M± SD), emotional response (5, 5±3, 1) (M±SD), and illness identity (5, 2±2, 9) (M±SD). Patients who scored high on personal control had statistically significant lower values of fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p<0.05). Patients who scored high on treatment control had statistically significant lower values of fasting blood glucose, total cholesterol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p<0.05). Patients who scored higher on illness coherence had statistically significant lower values of LDL cholesterol, and systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p<0.05). Statistic significance between other investigated characteristics was not found. Conclusions: The usage of the IPQ-B instrument in MI patients has shown that people who higher perceived their personal and treatment control over illness, as well as had higher illness understanding, had better values of some CVR factors from MI patients who perceived these illness perception scales lower. This implies a need for developing specific educational procedures for individuals who could be, on the basis of illness perceptions scales considered as patients at risk for inadequate self-care behavior.

llness perception; cardiovascular risk faktors; myocardial infarction; family medicine

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