Heart attack symptoms in women are often misdiagnosed as anxiety and do not receive the required treatment, a latest study shows.
Researchers at McGill University, Montreal, Canada conducted the study on 1,123 patients aged between 18 and 55 to find out the sex differences in mortality rates for men and women with acute coronary syndrome, reports the Agence France-Presse.
The participants were told to answer a set of questions after they were admitted to one of 24 hospitals in Canada, one in the United States and one in Switzerland. The researchers stated that the women respondents in the study belonged to lower income brackets and were prone to have diabetes, high blood pressure and a family history of heart disease. They also had significant higher levels of anxiety and depression than the men.
The researchers found that the men received faster access to electrocardiograms (ECGs) and fibrinolysis to prevent blood clots than the women, with door-to-ECG and door-to-needle times of 15 and 21 minutes for men and 28 and 36 minutes for women.
The authors explained the reason behind this was higher levels of anxiety for the misdiagnosis.
"Anxiety was associated with failure to meet the 10-minute benchmark for ECG in women but not in men," Dr Louise Pilote, clinician-researcher, Division of Clinical Epidemiology at the Research Institute of McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC), said in a press release.
"Patients with anxiety who present to the emergency department with noncardiac chest pain tend to be women, and the prevalence of acute coronary syndrome is lower among young women than among young men. These findings suggest that triage personnel might initially dismiss a cardiac event among young women with anxiety, which would result in a longer door-to-ECG interval."
Early treatment for a heart attack can avoid or reduce damage to the heart muscles and save a person's life.
"These findings suggest that triage personnel might initially dismiss a cardiac event among young women with anxiety, which would result in a longer door-to-ECG interval."
The findings were published in the current issue of the 'Canadian Medical Association Journal.'
