Black, Hispanic, and White women's knowledge of the symptoms of acute myocardial infarction

Objective: To examine Black, Hispanic, and White women's knowledge of the symptoms of acute myocardial infarction. Design: Descriptive, nonexperimental design. Setting: Detroit, Michigan, and San Antonio, Texas, metropolitan areas. Participants: A convenience sample of 78 ethnically diverse women. Hispanics (n = 26) were recruited from San Antonio, Texas; Blacks (n = 26) were recruited from Detroit, Michigan; and Whites were recruited from San Antonio, Texas (n = 13), and Detroit, Michigan (n = 13). Main Outcome Measures: Participants ranked 10 acute symptoms they believed represented a myocardial infarction: anxiety, arms ache, change in thinking, chest pain, cough, fatigue, decreased appetite, headache, indigestion, and shortness of breath. Next, participants assigned a likelihood score for each acute symptom as representing a myocardial infarction. Results: Hispanic women were more likely than Black women to perceive the symptom of headache as indicative of a myocardial infarction. Women older than age 45 were more likely to assign a higher likelihood score to the symptom of shortness of breath than were women age 45 or younger. Conclusions: Age and ethnic differences were noted in women's perception of the signs and symptoms indicative of a myocardial infarction.