A percepção da doença em pacientes cardíacos

Abstract

This thesis consists of two articles; one of them is a systematic review, and the other one, an empirical article. The first one aimed at conducting a systematic literature review that investigated the perception of heart disease based on the theory of the Common-Sense Model (MSC). Sixteen studies matched the search criteria. The results showed that the perceptions and /or the patient's beliefs about heart disease play an important role in coping measures. It has been concluded that, in general, most studies showed that the perception of heart disease is associated with serious consequences to the patient's life, with causes connected to factors regardless of individuals´ behavior (psychological causes, heredity, viruses, bad luck etc.). In addition to that, results indicated that most cardiac patients assign greater relevance to treatment for disease control than to their personal control. In the second article, we attempted to assess the perception of the disease in cardiac patients and their relationship to communicating the seven disease perception dimensions, identified by the patient when communicating the diagnosis. The instruments used were: sociodemographic questionnaire; Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ-R) and Survey of Perceptions of Information Provided in diagnosis. The results showed that perceptions of the illness by the heart patient are not related to the information provided by the doctor at the time of communicating the diagnosis.