BACKGROUND: Despite providing insufficient medical evidence of the existence of a real cardiac condition, patients with non-coronary chest pain still interpret their pain incorrectly. The present study, therefore, sought to compare the irrational beliefs in non-coronary patients with mild chest pain against those with severe chest pain. METHODS: A cross-sectional design was used. The statistical population comprised non-coronary patients who presented to the Heart Emergency Center of Kermanshah city, Iran. Using a matching method, 96 participants were selected and studied in two groups of 48. The instruments used were the Comorbidity Index, Brief Pain Index, and the Jones Irrational Beliefs Test (short-form). The multivariate analysis of variance, chi-square test, and t-test were used for data analysis. RESULTS: Controlling for the effects of age and comorbid conditions, the severity of three types of irrational beliefs, including emotional irresponsibility (P<0.001), hopelessness changes (P<0.001), and problem avoiding (P=0.002) was higher among patients with severe chest pain (according to effect level). However, in terms of demand for approval, no difference was seen between the two groups (P=0.180). CONCLUSION: Non-coronary patients with severe chest pain showed a greater number of irrational beliefs in comparison to patients with mild pain. Irrational beliefs are common mental occurrences in patients with non-coronary chest pain, and they should be attended to by health professionals, especially in severe non-coronary chest pain. Further investigation to determine the association between irrational beliefs and non-coronary chest pain is necessary.
Chest Pain* ; Comorbidity ; Emergencies ; Health Occupations ; Heart ; Humans ; Iran ; Multivariate Analysis ; Statistics as Topic

BACKGROUND: Patients suffering from non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) can interpret their chest pain wrongly despite having received a correct diagnosis. The objective of this study was to compare the efficacy of the relaxation method with metaphor therapy for reducing irrational beliefs and pain severity in patients with NCCP. METHODS: Using a randomized controlled trial, 33 participants were randomly divided into a relaxation training group (n= 13), a metaphor therapy group (n = 10), and a control group (n = 10), and were studied for 4 weeks. The two tools used in this research were the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) index for determining the degree of pain and the short version of the Jones Irrational Belief Test. Metaphor therapy and a relaxation technique based on Ost's treatment were used as the interventions. The collected data were analyzed with a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), a Chi-square test, and the Bonferroni procedure of post-hoc analysis. RESULTS: The relaxation training method was significantly more effective than both metaphor therapy and the lack of treatment in reducing the patients' beliefs of hopelessness in the face of changes and emotional irresponsibility, as well as the pain severity. Metaphor therapy was not effective on any of these factors. In fact, the results did not support the effectiveness of metaphor therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Regarding the effectiveness of the relaxation method as compared with metaphor therapy and the lack of treatment in the control group, this study suggests that relaxation should be paid greater attention as a method for improving the status of patients. In addition, more studies are needed to determine the effectiveness of metaphor therapy in this area.
Chest Pain* ; Diagnosis ; Humans ; Metaphor* ; Multivariate Analysis ; Relaxation*

No abstract available.
Chest Pain* ; Humans ; Thorax*