Temporal association of contamination obsession on the prehospital delay of STEMI during COVID-19 pandemic

BACKGROUND: One of the modifiable risk factors for ST elevation myocardial infarction is prehospital delay. The purpose of our study was to look at the effect of contamination contamination obsession on prehospital delay compared with other measurements during the Covid-19 pandemic. METHOD: A total of 139 patients with acute STEMI admitted to our heart center from 20 March 2020 to 20 June 2020 were included in this study. If the time interval between the estimated onset of symptoms and admission to the emergency room was >120 min, it was considered as a prehospital delay. The Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), and Padua Inventory-Washington State University Revision (PI-WSUR) test were used to assess Contamination-Obbsessive compulsive disorder (C-OCD). RESULT: The same period STEMI count compared to the previous year decreased 25%. The duration of symptoms onset to hospital admission was longer in the first month compared to second and third months (180 (120–360), 120 (60–180), and 105 (60–180), respectively; P = 0.012). Multivariable logistic regression (model-2) was used to examine the association between 7 candidate predictors (age, gender, diabetes mellitus (DM), hypertension, smoking, pain-onset time, and coronary artery disease (CAD) history), PI-WSUR C-OCD, and admission month with prehospital delay. Among variables, PI-WSUR C-OCD and admission month were independently associated with prehospital delay (OR 5.36 (2.11–13.61) (P = 0.01); 0.26 (0.09–0.87) p < 0.001] respectively]. CONCLUSION: Our study confirmed that contamination obsession was associated with prehospital delay of STEMI patients, however anxiety and depression level was not associated during the pandemic.