Association Between Perceived Control and Acute Coronary Syndrome Symptom Severity: A Prospective Cohort Study.

This was an observational study, so it cannot show that perceived control caused lower symptoms. Symptoms were followed for only 3 days, which is short for acute coronary syndrome recovery. The sample was relatively small and came from three university hospitals in Egypt, so it may not apply to other settings. Symptom severity was self-reported on a diary, and the authors state that no valid Arabic symptom instrument was available for the studied symptoms. The text and table give different counts for the high and low perceived control groups, so group sizes should be read with care. Patients were classified as high or low perceived control using the median of this sample, not an established clinical cut-off.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Do not conclude that increasing perceived control will reduce acute coronary syndrome symptoms. This study only observed that patients with higher perceived control reported lower symptoms on some days; it did not test an intervention, and it found no group difference for chest pain on days 1 and 2 or fatigue on day 1.