ArticleFrontiers in public health2026
From symptom onset to care-seeking: a process-oriented mixed-methods study of prehospital delay in cerebral infarction.
Article in Frontiers in public health, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Cerebral infarction (ischemic stroke) is a highly time-sensitive acute cerebrovascular event, yet prehospital delays in patients' accessing medical care remain prevalent across various countries and healthcare systems. Previous studies have primarily attributed delays to inadequate symptom recognition or barriers in healthcare accessibility, with limited systematic exploration of their formation mechanisms from a decision-making process perspective. Methods: This study integrated the Self-Regulation Model and the three-stage delay model, employing an explanatory sequential mixed-methods approach to examine the cognitive and decision-making processes among cerebral infarction patients who delayed seeking care. A total of 68 patients completed the Brief Illness Perception Questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 of these patients. Results: Findings indicate that delays in seeking medical care result from distinct mechanisms operating at different stages. During the appraisal delay stage, patients tended to normalize early or atypical symptoms. In the illness delay stage, optimism bias, self-regulatory overestimation, and doubts about medical efficacy reinforced a "wait-and-see" strategy. At the utilization delay stage, considerations of financial burden, family responsibilities, and societal role consequences significantly inhibited immediate healthcare-seeking behavior. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed a cognitive-behavioral disconnect between illness perceptions and actual healthcare decisions. Conclusion: This study extends the explanatory power of Self-Regulation Model in healthcare decision-making contexts from a process-oriented perspective and offers a theoretical basis for designing staged, cognition-focused interventions aimed at reducing treatment delays.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.