Background: The pre-hospital time delay in acute myocardial infarction (AMI) is still a challenging problem since for many patients there are long intervals between the onset of symptoms and the initiation of therapy. The aim of this study was to verify which, among several clinical variables, are associated with a prolonged pre-hospital time delay.
Methods: Five hundred and twenty-six unselected patients with AMI and consecutively admitted to three coronary care units were enrolled. The pre-hospital time delay was defined as the time interval from the onset of symptoms to admission to the coronary care unit. Clinical variables included: age, gender, body mass index, level of education, alcohol consumption, smoking habits, regular physical activity, history of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, history of coronary artery disease (documented history of angina and/or previous myocardial infarction), chronic atrial fibrillation, Q-wave AMI and off hours onset of symptoms. After univariate analysis, multivariable regression analysis was used.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 66.6 +/- 12.1 years and 28.7% were female. The median pre-hospital time interval was 200 min (95% confidence interval 60-1140). For 342 patients the pre-hospital time interval was < or = 6 hours and for 184 patients it was > 6 hours. Those variables which, at univariate analysis, were found to significantly influence the pre-hospital delay were analyzed using a multivariable regression model where the dependent variable was the pre-hospital time interval. Chronic atrial fibrillation (p = 0.010), a history of coronary artery disease (p = 0.017), diabetes (p = 0.016) and age > or = 70 years (p = 0.009) were found to be independently associated with a prolonged prehospital time interval. Similar results were obtained when considering only Q-wave AMI. As expected, the thrombolytic therapy rate was much lower in patients with a longer pre-hospital time delay.
Conclusions: The present study shows that, in case of AMI, the time interval between the onset of symptoms and a patient's arrival to hospital is still far from being optimal. This is especially true for older patients with diabetes, a history of coronary artery disease or chronic atrial fibrillation. Cardiologists should be aware of this problem and should implement adequate educational strategies addressed to those patients at highest risk.