Ethnicity And Cardiac Care Study Gets Funding

February 11, 2010

U of C researcher to lead multi-disciplinary study in Calgary, Vancouver & Toronto

University of Calgary nursing researcher Kathryn King has received $420,000 from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the continuation of work focused on ethnic and gender differences in the presentation of coronary symptoms.The initial project, a review of 406 health records of Caucasian, Chinese, South Asian, South East Asian and First Nations heart attack patients revealed that there were differences in presentation of symptoms as well as when and how these people arrived in emergency departments. The new funding involves a multi-disciplinary team and will be completed over four years.

“Most of us would attribute pain or pressure in the middle of the chest as a sign of a heart problem,” says King, a cardiovascular nurse scientist at the U of C’s Faculty of Nursing. “But people may have different or unusual symptoms based on their ethnicity or sex.”

King and her team plan to interview more than 1,800 men and women of different ethnic backgrounds at nine hospitals in Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver who have been admitted to hospital with chest pain or heart attack. “By reviewing their health records and asking them a number of questions such as ‘Where was your pain?’ and ‘How long did you have the symptoms before you went to the hospital?’ we should be able to compare ethnic groups and discover differences.”

King adds the information will be helpful to men and women from each ethnic group when trying to make a decision about seeking health care and for health care providers when these people arrive at their offices or hospital.

The proposal was ranked second out of 52 applications by the reviewing committee.

Other University of Calgary faculties receiving funding in this current wave were Medicine and Veterinary Medicine.

The CIHR is the Government of Canada’s agency for health research. Their mission is to create new scientific knowledge and to catalyze its translation into improved health, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health-care system.