An Educational and Skill-Building Intervention to Improve Symptom Recognition and Interpretation in Women With Acute Coronary Syndrome

BACKGROUND: The type of symptoms that a woman experiences during an acute coronary syndrome (ACS) event influences symptom recognition and interpretation. Women who experience intense, abrupt symptoms are more likely to correctly attribute symptoms to a cardiac etiology and seek care faster than women with less intense, intermittent symptoms. OBJECTIVE: A single-group pretest-posttest design was used to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a nurse-delivered education and skill-building intervention designed to improve symptom recognition and interpretation in women with recurrent ACS symptoms. METHODS: Women hospitalized for an ACS event received an individualized education and skill-building intervention that was conceptually framed by the investigator's previous research. Three in-person sessions were followed by 2 telephone sessions for reinforcement. Outcomes and acceptability were evaluated at close-out (approximately 2 months after the index event). RESULTS: All but 2 women approached agreed to participate. Of the 10 women enrolled, 9 completed all study sessions within an average of 55 days. Mean knowledge scores increased by 7.4% measured by the ACS Response Index. Attitudes toward symptom recognition and help seeking increased by 2.4, whereas beliefs toward expectations and actions increased by 3.2. The women were pleased with the intervention (satisfaction scores averaging 1.4 on a 4-point Likert scale, with 1 as "strongly agree" and 4 as "strongly disagree"). All women who completed the study would recommend it to others. CONCLUSION: The nurse-delivered intervention was feasible and acceptable to women in the study. Results support further testing and refinement of the intervention in a longitudinal randomized control study to determine efficacy and sustainability.