Recognizing a Heart Attack: Patients’ Knowledge of Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Its Relation to Prehospital Decision Delay in Acute Coronary Syndrome Garrido del Águila, Dunia Petrova, Dafina Catena Martínez, Andrés Ramírez Hernández, José Antonio García Retamero Imedio, María Del Rocío Acute coronary syndrome Patient decision making Prehospital delay Knowledge Decision delay Heart attack Cardiovascular risk In acute coronary syndromes (ACSs), longer decision delay – the time patients wait before seeking medical attention after symptoms have started – increases the risk of complications and death. However, many patients wait much longer than recommended and research is needed investigating how patient decision delay can be reduced. In a cross-sectional study of 120 ACS survivors, we investigated the relationship between knowledge of cardiovascular risk factors and decision delay. Several days after the onset of a cardiac event, patients completed a questionnaire measuring demographics, decision delay, objective knowledge of cardiovascular risks factors and of ACS symptoms, and subjective perceptions of symptoms during the cardiac episode. Relevant clinical data were extracted from patients’ medical records. In a multiple linear regression analysis, controlling for demographic and clinical factors, objective knowledge of cardiovascular risk factors and ACS symptoms, and subjective attributions of symptoms to a cardiac cause were related to shorter decision delays. Among patients with relatively high knowledge of risk factors, only 5% waited more than 1 h to seek help, compared to 22% among patients with relatively low knowledge. These results suggest that knowledge of the factors that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease could play a role in patient decision making during an acute cardiac event. We discuss methodological issues and potential underlying mechanisms related to decision heuristics and biases, which can inform future research. 2020-11-06T10:32:00Z 2020-11-06T10:32:00Z 2020-08-25 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Garrido D, Petrova D, Catena A, Ramírez-Hernández JA and Garcia-Retamero R (2020) Recognizing a Heart Attack: Patients’ Knowledge of Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Its Relation to Prehospital Decision Delay in Acute Coronary Syndrome. Front. Psychol. 11:2056. [doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02056] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/64099 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.02056 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España Petko Kusev, University of Huddersfield