Abstract

Cardiovascular diseases are nowadays included as one of the factors threatening health of all humans. In many countries of the world, including our country, they are known as an important mortality cause. Given the importance of heart attacks diagnosis in the early hours, the present research aims at studying positive and negative cases of Troponin-I diagnostic test in patients referring to Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital of Ilam. The present study is a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in 3 months from March to May 2015 on patients referring to the emergency department of Shahid Mostafa Khomeini Hospital of Ilam. The data collected were analyzed by SPSS version 18 through using descriptive-analytical statistics and chi-squared statistical test. Moreover, P<0.05 was considered as the significance level. From among 1420 patient studied, only 200 patients had the inclusion criteria for entering this study. From this number, 110 patients were male, and 90 patients were female with the mean age of 46.87 +/- 1.098. The job frequencies of the patients were as follows: 80 patients (40) were office worker or had parttime jobs; 88 patients (44) were either unemployed or housewives; and 32 patients (16) were students. The incidence rate of positive troponin was four patients; three men and one woman. The findings of the present study indicate that over-prescription of Troponin test in unnecessary cases by the doctors is likely to impose high costs and stress on both the patient and the personnel of the laboratory. Thus, the doctors are recommended to be more cautious in prescribing this test. It is also recommended to change the method of the test from Troponin-I to Troponin-T.