Purpose: The purpose of our descriptive study was to determine the perception of health and healthy lifestyle behaviors in patients with coronary artery disease (CAD).
Materials and Methods: The study sample is consisted of 305 patients, treated in the coronary care unit of the Private Hospital Complex between May 2016–January 2017, who were diagnosed as having coronary artery disease, treated with percutaneous coronary intervention, willing to participate in the study, and able to completely answer the study questionnaires. Study data was obtained by using the “Sociodemographic Information Form”, “Perception of Health Scale (PHS)”, and “Health Promoting Life Style II (HPLP II)” through direct communication with the participants. The statistical methods included number, percentage, mean, Cronbach alfa coefficient, Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann Whitney U, and Kruskal Wallis tests.
Results: It was determined that the mean age of participants was 58.63 ± 11.08, 63.3% of the patients were male (n=193). Ninety-nine patients (32.5%) appeared to be between ages of 55–64. Also, 63.3% of them were male (n=193), 84.6% (n=258) were married and 48.5% were primary school graduates (n=148). The mean score of the PHS was 47.37 ± 5.77 and the mean score of the HPLP II was 131.36 ± 26.71. Spearman correlation was used to analyze the relation between mean scores of the PHS and the HPLP II. There was a relatively weak association between the mean PHS and the HPLP II scores (r=0.403; p=0.001).
Conclusion: The fact that all subscales except the physical activity subdimension of Healthy Life Style Behaviour Scale II and the precision subscale of Perception of Health Scale are above the median of the mean of the points may be a sign that both healthy lifestyle behaviors and health perception are close to the desired level. It may be suggested that physical activity and the precision of the Perception of Health Scale should be considered first in the patient trainings planned in line with these results.