A retrospective assessment of the association between patient factors and African Americans' willingness to accept heart catheterizations

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been the leading cause of death in the United States. Heart catheterization is a gateway invasive diagnostic cardiac procedure used to detect CVD. However, CVD-related racial and ethnic disparities exist in accessing heart catheterizations. When compared to Whites, African Americans are the least willing to undergo the heart catheterization procedure.;The objective of this study was to assess patient factors associated with African American patients' willingness to accept the heart catheterization procedure. Clinical and administrative data from the Cardiac ACCESS Longitudinal (CAL) Study were used for this study. This secondary analysis sample consisted of 298 African American cardiac patients' records. Frequency distributions, chi square and logistic regression analyses were used to examine patient factors associated with the patients' willingness decisions.;Majority of the patients (78.2%) were willing to accept the procedure, over half (50.5%) of the patients had high-perceived racism, 53.5% had high medical mistrust and, 59.5% were satisfied with their hospital interactions. After controlling for onsite catheterization laboratory and receipt of the heart catheterization, a single medical mistrust statement and being older were associated with lower odds of being willing to accept the procedure. Patients who agreed hospitals experiment on people without their knowledge were 63% less willing to accept the cardiac procedure than those who disagreed with the statement (p= .010; OR = .37; CI: .177 -.794). Patients 50-64 years old were 73% less willing to accept the heart catheterization than patients >80 years old (p= .038; OR= .27; CI: .083- .931).;Since African Americans are adversely impacted by CVD, the study's findings offer insight into patient factors associated with their willingness to accept heart catheterizations. Further study is recommended to examine the impact the future study findings would have on African American cardiac patients' utilization of heart catheterization.