The relationship between illness perceptions and cardiac misconceptions after Myocardial Infarction

Abstract

Research about cardiac misconceptions has focused on identifying the most common erroneous beliefs and understanding their impact on patients' outcomes. However, less is known about the underlying structure of cardiac misconceptions and how they relate to other belief dimensions. The aims of the present study were: (a) to characterize illness perceptions and cardiac misconceptions in a sample of Myocardial Infarction (MI) patients; (b) to analyse the structure of an experimental Portuguese version of the York Cardiac Beliefs Questionnaire (YCBQ); and (c) to examine whether illness perceptions are likely to influence cardiac misconceptions. This cross-sectional study included 127 first-MI patients from both sexes, aged up to 70 years old. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling were performed with AMOS. The main results showed that a two-dimension (stress avoidance and exercise avoidance) version of the YCBQ offered the best fit to the data. A significant impact of psychological attributions was observed on cardiac misconceptions, as well as a moderate impact of emotional response explaining 26% of the variance. Although exploratory, this study gives a significant contribution to research in this field, as clarification on the different concepts and the way they relate is needed. Our findings suggest that further investigation into the concepts of cardiac knowledge and cardiac misconceptions may have an important role in understanding health behaviours in the context of heart disease.

Cardiac health knowledge and misconceptions among nursing students: implications for nursing curriculum design

“…A common cardiac misconception relates to the avoidance of stress. It is perceived to be a danger for patients with heart disease to get into arguments with people [ 6 ]. Other misconceptions include the view that people with heart problems must never get excited, and that having heart problems is a sign that the heart is worn out [ 7 ].…”

“…When comparing the maladaptive beliefs about heart disease held by nurses, nursing students, and patients with the disease, it was found that nursing students had fewer misconceptions than graduated nurses, while patients held significantly more misconceptions. As for patients with myocardial infarction, a common misconception is that they must avoid stress and excitement in their daily lives [ 6 ]. In a community sample of healthy adults, people who were older, male, or had not attained an academic degree were found to have more misconceptions [ 10 ].…”