Objectives: Based on Self-Regulation Theory, the aim was to understand what women know about AMI, and how they deal with having AMI.  Of specific interest were direct and indirect relationships between knowledge of AMI risk factors and symptoms, perception of symptoms seriousness, treatment-seeking behavior, time-to-treatment and psychological distress which has not been examined before.

Methods:  Using cross-sectional, descriptive correlational design, a convenience sample of 53 women who had first time AMI were interviewed.   

Results: Three treatment-seeking behaviors were identified; contacting profession, self-medication and avoidance.  In spite of having high knowledge of AMI symptoms and perceiving the symptoms as very serious, most women (68%) used a self-medication behavior (told some one, tried to relax, tried self help remedies) before they call 911.  Path analysis was used to examine the relationships among the independent variables knowledge of AMI symptom, knowledge of AMI risk factors, perception of symptoms seriousness, treatment-seeking behavior, time-to-treatment and the dependent variable psychological distress.  Education, race, marital status, type of treatment and perception of severity of AMI were treated as covariate.  The independent variables were moderately correlated and all together explained 33% of variance on psychological distress.  Psychological distress was directly predicted by perception of symptoms seriousness and indirectly through treatment-seeking behavior and time-to-treatment.  Women who perceived their symptoms as serious, contacted profession, had shorter time-to-treatment and had low psychological distress and vice versa.  

Implications: Larger samples and further research on the relationship between treatment-seeking behaviors and psychological outcomes for women may lead to new insight in potential moderator’s effect.