Pain may be a critical clinical marker for disease. Recognition and appropriate response to abnormal experiences of pain may be paramount for effective treatment and recovery. If individuals attribute their pain to a stable internal demographic characteristic, such as age, they may be less likely to respond appropriately and seek help for a potentially fatal condition. This study examined a sub-group of post-Myocardial Infarct (MI) patients who completed the one-month interview for the Yale Mind-Heart Study. It was hypothesized that 1) individuals who endorse that aches and pains are an expected part of aging will be more likely to attribute their pain to age; and 2) individuals who say that having aches and pains is an accepted part of aging will report taking longer than 60 minutes to respond to their pain symptoms by seeking help. Though hypothesis 1) was approaching significance (P=0.0567), there was no statistically significant relationship between pain beliefs and pain attributions or pain beliefs and taking longer than 60 minutes to respond to their pain symptoms in this sample of adults aged 40 and over. Exploratory analysis was done to determine what factors relate to help seeking in this population. Income and marital status were significantly related to whether or not individuals sought help in response to pain symptoms. Recognizing pain symptoms as a sign that individuals were having a cardiac event was significantly related to decreased delay time before seeking help. Future research should examine why income and marital status relate to help seeking. Based on these findings, there is evidence that interventions should focus on promoting tailored messages to older individuals about warning signs and appropriate responses for a myocardial infarction.
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