COVID-19 risk perceptions, worries and preventive behaviors in patients with previous myocardial infarction: results from the myocardial infarction registry Augsburg

ABSTRACT

Despite the known association of chronic cardiovascular diseases and more severe courses of COVID-19, little is known about individual risk perception of patients with a history of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and resulting preventive behaviours. In May 2020, a postal survey was conducted, including 150 patients with previous AMI from the myocardial infarction registry Augsburg. The study objective was to assess COVID-19 knowledge, individual risk perception, worries, infection likelihood and preventive behaviours in this patient cohort. From the 100 respondents, 69.7% perceived themselves to be at high risk of developing a severe course of COVID-19. There was a significant positive correlation between dangerousness assessment and knowledge on COVID-19. Despite a majority (70%) of patients rating their susceptibility for an infection as moderate to very high, the individual likelihood of being infected was rated at only 3%. Almost 70% of patients with previous MI classified themselves at high risk for a severe course of COVID-19 infection. As seen in other risk groups as well, the availability of valuable information sources as well as the support in individual risk reduction strategies and psychological coping mechanisms are mandatory, especially since higher knowledge correlates with dangerousness assessment and might lead to better compliance with preventive behaviours.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID- 19
• risk perception
• myocardial infarction
• myocardial infarction registry

Acknowledgments

We thank all members of the Chair of Epidemiology and the Department of Cardiology, Respiratory Medicine and Intensive Care at the University Hospital Augsburg who are involved in the conduct of the Myocardial Infarction Registry Augsburg.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13548506.2022.2083200

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.