Authors : Paulo Santos, Carlos Martins, Paulo Pessanha, Manuel Viana, Luisa Sa, Alberto Hespanhol, Altamiro Costa Pereira and Luciana Couto
Abstract: Electrocardiogram (ECG) plays a major role in the study of chest pain. To measure the impact of making an ECG in patients with Chest Pain (CP) in primary care. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients with CP that made an ECG in a primary care setting by comparison with those who made the ECG as a routine test in order to measure the change of cardiovascular clinical guidance up to 6 months after ECG. Cases were categorized in atypical or typical CP. Secondary a clinical practice analysis was performed, counting the number of medical visits 12 months before and after ECG. We studied 480 patients, consecutively selected during 4 years, 333 in CP group (286 with atypical CP) and 147 controls. Patients with typical CP presented higher changing in clinical guidance (RR = 4.299; 95% CI: 2.378-7.772, p<0.001) than patients with atypical CP (RR = 1.116; 95% CI: 1.008-1.235, p = 0.047) when compared with controls. In the routine group, there wasn’t any variation of visits counting as in the typical CP group but a reduction of 0.59 visits (95% CI: -0.90-0.29; p<0.001) occurred in the atypical CP patients 1 year after the ECG. Anxiety was significantly associated to atypical CP orientation.
Paulo Santos, Carlos Martins, Paulo Pessanha, Manuel Viana, Luisa Sa, Alberto Hespanhol, Altamiro Costa Pereira and Luciana Couto, 2015. Electrocardiogram and Chest Pain in Real Practice: A Retrospective Cohort Study in Family Practicein Portugal. Research Journal of Medical Sciences, 9: 58-63.