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Elective percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) is an increasingly popular treatment for coronary heart disease, but little is known about individuals’ cognitive responses to this intervention. As part of adapting to living with chronic disease, individuals develop unique models, or illness representations, which enable them to “make sense” of their predicament. Inaccurate illness representations have a negative affect on patient behaviors and outcomes.

This purpose of this study was to examine changes in patients’ self-reported illness representations before and after first-time elective PTCA.

In this descriptive, repeated-measures design, illness representations were evaluated in 117 consecutive patients attending a pre-PTCA clinic using the Illness Perceptions Questionnaire. Data were collected pre- and 6 to 8 months post-elective PTCA.

A typical …