Myocardial infarction is a condition of the heart where some of the blood supply to is hindered or cut off. This causes the heart muscles to suffer and fail because of lack of oxygen. The myocardium gets its blood supply from two big coronary arteries which work hand in hand with their branches. According to A. Maziar Zafari in 2011, the imbalance of oxygen supply to the heart and demand by the body causes reduction of blood supply to a section of the myocardium. This causes myocardium infarction. The continued deprivation of blood to the heart cells causes continued myocardial infarction which eventually results to heart failure which is commonly referred to as heart attack. Myocardium infarction has not been well addressed by the society and focus has always been on other illnesses like breast and cervical cancer. However, myocardium infarction is a real threat to women and contrary to what people believed previously, the disease is not reserved for a certain class of people; anybody can contract it. After a thorough research on myocardium infarction which was conducted on twelve women who were randomly picked from the coronary care unit (CCU) in the south west of England. This research paper tries to expound more on myocardium infarction in women.
The problem that the research is trying to solve and expound on is myocardium infarction in women, its symptoms pre and after diagnosis and how it a can be countered. It also ties to give an overview of the nature of symptoms experienced by women during their myocardial infarction. Many women are not aware of myocardium infarction and regard it as an uncommon disease. Many of them further believe that they are not at risk of contracting the disease. However, the statistics at the ground tell the opposite of this. For instance in the year 2001, 54491 women in the UK died of myocardium infarction. This number is four times the number of women who died of breast cancer and it was the largest number of women who died from any single disease. With this data it is very clear that myocardium infarction is a true threat to life and an affirmative action must be taken in order to reverse the trend that the disease has taken. According to Albarran, Clarke and Craw ford in their research ‘It was not chest pain really, I can’t explain it!’ An exploratory study on’ the following data can be tabulated. They researchers used secondary data which they collected from previous researches done by other researches and journals.
Data collected in the UK in 2002
disease |
Number of deaths |
Myocardium infarction |
54491 |
Breast cancer |
13623 |
Any other disease (single) |
< 54491 |
Data collected in the United States
disease |
Number of deaths |
percentage |
Myocardium infarction |
500,000 |
41.3 % |
Cancers |
< 500000 |
58.7% ( inclusive of cancers and other diseases) |
The purpose of the research work is to explore the kind of signs and symptoms which women experience before they suffer from myocardium infarction and after contracting the disease. This is aimed at creating awareness of the disease. The researcher used verbal information and data collected from the women who participated in this research. The data is more reliable since it came from the ‘horse’s mouth’ that is women who are directly affected with myocardium infarction. The research was conducted due to the fact that it was noticed that women suffering from myocardium infarction take long times before they seek medical care and by doing this they subject themselves and their lives to danger or even death when the medication is sought at late stages of the disease. Normally it starts as a chest problem which is more often than not ignored by the women who take it as a normal pain oblivious of the possible dangers they are exposed to due to their non informed decisions.
The participants of the research agreed to participate in the exercise on an informed consent. They were well educated on the research entailed and what they were expected to do. They were further told where the data and information collected from them would be dealt with. The process of choosing the participants was well planned. It started with advertisements on the walls and notice boards of Coronary Care Unit that was being targeted by the researcher. The participants were randomly chosen from fifty interested patients and synthetisation of the participants followed afterwards where they all agreed to participate willingly in the exercise. They signed a form of participation and the interviews followed after that. Ethics was greatly upheld during the research. Confidentiality of the participants was emphasized and practiced throughout the exercise. The interviews that were recorded did not bear names of the participants and they were just labeled as MI Samples, which meant myocardium samples. This was done so as not to bring about shame, social stigma and other discomforts that the participants could face when the findings and the report of the research was made public. Other measures that were undertaken to uphold confidentiality were to interview each participant in a secluded place where she could not risk getting her opinions and experiences heard by the members of the general public and also fellow participants.
The design used in the research was qualitative in nature in that interviews were conducted on each participant and were recorded on tapes. Other types of data were collected and tabulated after which they were analyzed in a qualitatively. The collection of the data was targeted at exploring the health information priorities of women who had been newly diagnosed with myocardial infarction. Qualitative methods of data analyzing involve the processes of presenting and interpreting data. The data being interpreted must be numerical. The method encompasses descriptive and inferential statistics. The descriptive data has measures of central tendency and measures of variability which give the person who is reading the presented data a picture of the situation on the ground. Inferential statistics are the outcomes of the research that is the tests that were conducted and they are used in making conclusions on the sample and population from which the sample was taken from. The inferential statistics are further used to test the hypothesis of the study.
The type of sample taken was a purposive sample. Purposive samples are samples that are taken from a population that exhibits specific traits and features that are targeted by the researcher. Due to this, the researcher will always take a sample from the population so as to enable him/ her carry out the research and get the correct outcome. Therefore, purposive sampling is done deliberately and is targeted to a certain group. For example a researcher who wants to research on study habits of students will take a sample, from an academic institution. In the context of the research at hand, the targeted group was women who suffered from myocardial infarction. This sample was chosen over other kinds of sample because the research was targeted at women who were suffering from myocardial infarction. Therefore the researcher had to go to a hospital and head specifically to a women coronary care unit where he/ she was sure of finding a woman who was suffering from myocardial infarction .
Data for the research was collected by means of an interview which lasted between 30 – 40 minutes. The data was recorded in media tapes. The interviews were conducted either in the coronary ward or in a private room. The interview was designed in a friendly manner and this was aimed at ensuring that the participant felt free to give her experiences without holding back some information. The terminology used in the interview questions was understandable to the common man and complex medical terminologies were avoided. The time allocation of the interview was allocated in a calculated manner so as to avoid stressing the patients by expecting them to say a lot within a small time. This was aimed at ensuring that the participant was fully composed and had abundant time to compose her words and give clear statements. The data was tabulated as follows:
patient |
age |
Known risk factors |
diagnosis |
Tnl level |
Serum cholesterol |
Associated symptoms of MI |
Onset of symptoms (hours) |
Time of admission (hours) |
1 |
54 |
Hypertensive and former smoker |
Non STEMI |
0.65 |
6.5 |
sweating and nausea |
09.00 |
12.00 |
2 |
50 |
Smoker with family history with CHD |
Inferior MI |
2 |
6.3 |
Feeling hot, clammy and sick |
07.30 |
09.38 |
3 |
68 |
None |
Inferior MI |
22.3 |
6.1 |
sweating and nausea |
11.00 |
01.44 |
4 |
48 |
Family history with CHD |
Inferior MI |
>50 |
6.6 |
Vomiting and collapsing |
03.15 |
04.20 |
5 |
61 |
hypertensive |
Non STEMI |
14 |
4.1 |
Feeling nausea |
10.00 |
03.55 |
6 |
68 |
Hypertensive |
Non STEMI |
3.8 |
4.8 |
02.00 |
02.45 |
|
7 |
61 |
Former smoker with family history of CHD |
Anterior MI |
0.16 |
7.6 |
sweating and nausea |
11.30 |
13.09 |
8 |
61 |
Family history of CHD |
Inferior MI |
3.4 |
3.6 |
Sweating horribly and vomiting |
06.30 |
13.35 |
9 |
65 |
diabetic |
Non STEMI |
0.21 |
3.7 |
Nausea and clamminess |
08.30 |
09.30 |
10 |
63 |
Family history of CHD and former smoker |
intero -lateral MI |
40 |
7 |
Being clammy, nausea and vomiting |
14.00 |
16.18 |
11 |
78 |
hypertension |
Anterior MI |
21 |
6.9 |
Shortness of breath |
10.15 |
12.00 |
12 |
78 |
none |
Inferior MI |
50 |
4.1 |
Found collapsed |
21.06 |
Data analysis
The mean time taken by the patients to seek medical attention was calculated;
3 + 2.08 + 1.05 + 5 + 2.44 +0.45+ 1.79 + 7.25 + 1+2.18 + 1.45 = 27.69
27.69/11 = 2.52
This is the average time that the women took to seek medical attention. This is dangerous since 2 hours 52 minutes of myocardial infarcture can a possible cause of death. Women should therefore seek medical care as soon as they have any symptoms. Educating the public on the signs and symptoms would be beneficial since many do not know that the symptoms of myocardial infarcture. The median of the time taken by the women is (2.18 + 2.08)/2 = 2.13hr This figure is not encouraging since it can be seen that the time taken by the women is still too much compare to the possible danger.
The advantages of this method are that a general picture of the population can be painted from the results. For instance the time taken by women to seek medical attention can be said to be 2 hours 52 minutes. Big volumes of data can also be analyzed. The disadvantages of this method are that extreme points cannot be accounted for well e.g. very high hours of time (7hrs.25min) and (0. 45min). This results to the points being generalized.
In conclusion, it can be noted that myocardial infarcture is a dangerous disease and is very much rampant in the society. Many people (women) do not know the signs and symptoms of the disease hence end up assuming that the pains they have are normal hence they do not seek medical care until it is too late. Therefore the public must be educated on the signs and symptom s of the disease and ways in which they can protect themselves from the disease. It can be noted from the data collected that cholesterol levels of the women admitted are high hence proper and healthy dieting must be advocated for. People should restrain from eating foods with high cholesterol levels and if possible avoid them completely. The research was successful in proving that women are ignorant if myocardial infarcture and need to be educated on the disease. The readers of this report are requested to spread the message and join together in fighting myocardial infarcture.