TY - JOUR T1 - Electrocardiogram and Chest Pain in Real Practice: A Retrospective Cohort Study in Family Practicein Portugal AU - Santos, Paulo AU - Martins, Carlos AU - Pessanha, Paulo AU - Viana, Manuel AU - Sa, Luisa AU - Hespanhol, Alberto AU - Pereira, Altamiro Costa AU - Couto, Luciana JO - Research Journal of Medical Sciences VL - 9 IS - 3 SP - 58 EP - 63 PY - 2015 DA - 2001/08/19 SN - 1815-9346 DO - rjmsci.2015.58.63 UR - https://makhillpublications.co/view-article.php?doi=rjmsci.2015.58.63 KW - Chest pain KW -primary care KW -electrocardiography KW -physician’s practice patterns KW -disease management KW -health impact assessment AB - Electrocardiogram (ECG) plays a major role in the study of chest pain. To measure the impact of making an ECG in patients with Chest Pain (CP) in primary care. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients with CP that made an ECG in a primary care setting by comparison with those who made the ECG as a routine test in order to measure the change of cardiovascular clinical guidance up to 6 months after ECG. Cases were categorized in atypical or typical CP. Secondary a clinical practice analysis was performed, counting the number of medical visits 12 months before and after ECG. We studied 480 patients, consecutively selected during 4 years, 333 in CP group (286 with atypical CP) and 147 controls. Patients with typical CP presented higher changing in clinical guidance (RR = 4.299; 95% CI: 2.378-7.772, p<0.001) than patients with atypical CP (RR = 1.116; 95% CI: 1.008-1.235, p = 0.047) when compared with controls. In the routine group, there wasn’t any variation of visits counting as in the typical CP group but a reduction of 0.59 visits (95% CI: -0.90-0.29; p<0.001) occurred in the atypical CP patients 1 year after the ECG. Anxiety was significantly associated to atypical CP orientation. ER -