Tag Archives: perception

Introduction Angina is the most common presentation of coronary heart disease (CHD).1 Effective treatment requires appropriate medical care, but also patient participation in lifestyle changes and medication concordance. Patient understanding of their disease and its treatment is desirable to enhance patient participation. Angina may be treated with medication only, through percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) or coronary artery bypass surgery (CABG). Although there are some circumstances where there is a preferred treatment option, research increasingly shows that in many situations the different treatment options for angina have similar

Introduction Palpitations present frequently in primary care, and are the second most common reason for a general practitioner (GP) to refer a patient to a cardiologist.1 Levels of distress and health concern are high in this patient group, even though most of these patients do not have demonstrable heart arrhythmias.2 Moreover, it is within this group with unexplained palpitations that psychiatric and psychological morbidity is highest.3,4 Given this background, we wondered how a patient with palpitations experienced the cardiology appointment, what effect it had on the perception of their cardiac symptoms, and whether this varied according