Abstract:
Myocardial infarction is one of the potentially fatal coronary-associated disordermarked by
unexpected cardiac cell death. Globally, it is one of the main causes of death. Patients'
knowledge is essential for managing post-MI condition. To enhance the health outcome, patient
education and support is most important. The aim of the study is to assess the knowledge on
myocardial infarction and associated factors on it among the patients with myocardial infarction
attending the cardiology clinic, Teaching Hospital Jaffna. Hospital based descriptive
cross-sectional study was conducted among 403 patients with myocardial infarction, attending
cardiology clinic,Teaching Hospital Jaffna. A pretested interviewer-administered questionnaire
was used to collect the data and systematic random sampling technique was used to select the
participants. Ethical clearance was obtained from Ethics Review Committee, Faculty of
Medicine, University of Jaffna. The data were entered by using IBM SPSS Statistics 27. The
variables were described by using descriptive statistic and the Chi-squared test was used to find
the association. Among 403 participants the mean age was 65.18 (SD=±9.811) with the range
from 31 to 85 years. Most of them were male (69.5%) and Sri Lankan Tamil (96.5%). Nearly
half of them having primary education (51.9%) and 18.6% were not having any formal
education. The mean overall knowledge score was 21.33 (SD=±5.282) and two third of
participants (68.0%) had adequate knowledge. Knowledge had statistically significant
association with level of education (p=<0.001), ethnicity (p=0.040) and monthly family income
(p=0.012). There is no any significant association with knowledge and age, gender, religion,
marital status, occupation and family history of MI. However, the majority of patients have
adequate knowledge on their condition, a significant proportion still lacks on essential
understanding on radiating pain as physical symptom and impact of diabetes, physical
inactivity, obesity, and high blood pressure as risk factors. To enhance patient knowledge,
frequent educational programs will be useful to improve the health outcome.
