Edinburgh Napier University

  Development of Interventions to reduce patient delay with symptoms of Acute Coronary Syndrome: identifying optimal content and mode of delivery.

Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) is serious and delay to treatment, in particular patient decision time, is a critical factor in reducing mortality and achieving optimal benefit from current treatment strategies. Previous interventions to reduce patient decision time have been largely unsuccessful. However, most interventions have failed to incorporate relevant psychological theory or to use established behaviour change techniques (BCTs).

We propose to develop a theory-based intervention by:

(i) identifying the content (i.e. BCTs) most likely to be effective, based on existing evidence (Systematic Review) and consensus amongst subject experts (Delphi study) and

(ii) identifying the most effective way of delivering that content by comparing two modes of delivery (text only and text+visual) with a control in an intervention modelling experiment, measuring effect on intention to seek help immediately.