Elective percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) does not prevent mortality or myocardial infarction, but is an important therapy for the relief of ischemic symptoms.   However, a majority of patients believe that PCI for stable coronary artery disease (CAD) will prolong their lives and prevent heart attacks. In this study, investigators surveyed 991 patients undergoing elective PCI for stable CAD at 10 hospitals to assess patient perceptions about the procedure and determine if patient understanding of procedural benefit was associated with the PCI operator or the hospital. Patients believed that their elective PCI was emergent in 20% of cases, 90% of patients felt that the PCI would prolong their life, and 88% felt that elective PCI would prevent future heart attacks, while only 1% correctly identified symptom improvement as the primary benefit of the procedure. Patient beliefs about the benefits of elective PCI varied at the hospital level, but similar variation was not observed across operators within sites.

Conclusions: Hospital-level variation in patient perceptions of the benefits of elective PCI suggests a role for hospital-level interventions to improve patient understanding of their procedure.

Summarized by Javier A. Valle and Steven M. Bradley

• Kureshi, F., et al., Variation in patients’ perceptions of elective percutaneous coronary intervention in stable coronary artery disease: cross sectional study. BMJ, 2014. 349: p. g5309.