This proposal for Nursing action to prevent acute myocardial infarction (AMI) draws on a doctoral thesis research carried out to investigate the experience of comfort and discomfort in the patient's perspective, by means of the Symbolic Interactionism approach and the Grounded Theory methodology. Data collected by means of interviews with 13 men who had suffered AMI, at two hospitals in São Paulo, Brazil, allowed us to point out what they define as comfortable or uncomfortable. This article focuses on the first phase of these men's experience, when the main discomfort is the break with everyday life, brought about by the onset of symptoms or by the stroke itself, and discusses possibilities for Nursing action in primary and secondary AMI prevention.
myocardial infarction; nursing care