Symptoms women don't realise they're having a heart attack

A heart attack is a life-threatening event but experts said that women tend to wait longer than men to seek medical help, says a new research. Experts have also found that women are less likely to survive their first heart attack than men, although heart disease is the leading cause of death for both the sexes. This is due to the fact that the heart attack symptoms in women is slightly different compared to men and are more likely to be under recognised.

According to a study, women having a heart attack wait approximately 37 minutes longer than men before getting medical help. “Women having a heart attack seem to be less likely than men to attribute their symptoms to a condition that requires urgent treatment,”  co-author of the study, said in a statement. 

Back and shoulder pain can be heart attack symptoms for women

The researchers also noted that women can have different heart attack symptoms than men. As per the study, women and men have a similar amount of pain during a heart attack, but the location may be different. While pain in the chest and left arm are usual heart attack symptoms for men, women often have back, shoulder, or stomach pain, the author added.

The goal of the study, was to find out changes in patient delay, which the authors referred to as ‘the time from symptom onset to contact with a hospital, emergency medical service, or general practitioner’. 

In the study, the researchers examined 4,360 adults who had a heart attack between 2000 and 2016 to determine how long men and women waited to get help for heart attack symptoms. They also analysed system delays, which was defined as the amount of time it took doctors to treat patients.
Results from the study showed that both women and men had equal reductions in system delays over the 16-year period. The researchers observed that there was no gender difference in the timely delivery of care by health professionals. However, they discovered that women delayed seeking medical help by a minimum of 37 minutes to an hour.

The researchers also believe that the patient delays among women contributed to a higher in-hospital mortality rate, which was 5.9 per cent against 4.5 per cent for men.

The findings indicate that understanding and recognising the heart attack symptoms can help you get early treatment and reduce further complications.

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