Assessment of Treadmill Exercise Test Preparation in Mosul Cardiac Center

Abstract

Background: The exercise ECG has a role in articulating the clinical history through stimulating symptoms such as chest pain (which is the most common presenting complaint indicating coronary artery disease and is seen frequently by primary care physicians) and breathlessness, and prompting additional details about their symptoms so it can facilitate communication between patient and clinician as the evaluation of chest pain can be very difficult since it is possible to have a normal resting ECG with considerable narrowing of the coronary arteries.
Objectives: This study sought to assess the roles of preparation for treadmill and the frequency of inconclusive result.
Methods: The study sample consisted of persons of all ages and both sexes attending the exercise units during the study period in Mosul city, Iraq were included in the research and the collection of cases started from the 1st of January 2012 to 1st of June 2012.
Results: The present study included a sample of 593 patients during the study period. The mean age of patients was 49±9 years. Mean age of males patients (48.7±9 years) compared with the females’ mean age (50.3±8 years) (p=0.000). The percentage of unprepared group for testing in the present study sample were 23.1%, a condition that was significantly associated with inconclusive result in general (p=0.000) and incomplete result in specific (p=0.001). On the other hand, 67.9% of patients were well prepared.
Conclusion: It was concluded that patients must be well prepared for exercise tolerance test. They should not only know the purpose of the test, but also signs and symptoms that indicate the test should be stopped.