Anxiety Disorders – ABC CARDIOL

ABC

Editorial

Anger and Cardiovascular Disease: An Old and Complicated Relationship

Carlos Eduardo Lucena Montenegro et al. Sergio Tavares Montenegro

Negative feelings have long been related to health problems. Buddhism, for example, refers to anger as one of the three “poisons of the mind” (greed, anger and madness). In the first edition of Circulation, there was already an article suggesting the association between stress and cardiovascular disease.

In the last decades, several studies have tried to correlate psychosocial factors, such as anger, anxiety, depression and stress, with coronary artery disease (CAD), demonstrating the increase in the incidence of CAD in patients with a higher incidence of these psychic conditions, for example, with a marked increase in events of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) between 2008 and 2009, in the United States, when there was a stock market crash.^– This relationship tends to be significantly more important in women, since factors such as low socioeconomic status and double working hours (conciliation of employment with maternity), among other factors, are more common in the female population. More recently, a longitudinal study of cohort was able to demonstrate the association between the activity of the cerebral amygdala (area involved with the emotions) and the increased risk of cardiovascular events.

[…]

Read Full Article

ABC

Original Article

Anxiety, Depression, and General Psychological Distress in Patients with Coronary Slow Flow

Mehmet Baran Karataş et al. Ebru Şahan Kazım Serhan Özcan Yiğit Çanga … Barış Güngör Tolga Onuk Göktürk İpek Yasin Çakıllı Emre Arugaslan Osman Bolca

Abstract

Background:

The relationship between psychiatric illness and heart disease has been frequently discussed in the literature. The aim of the present study was to investigate the relationship between anxiety, depression and overall psychological distress, and coronary slow flow (CSF).

Methods:

In total, 44 patients with CSF and a control group of 50 patients with normal coronary arteries (NCA) were prospectively recruited. Clinical data, admission laboratory parameters, and echocardiographic and angiographic characteristics were recorded. Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SCL-90-R), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) scales were administered to each patient.

Results:

The groups were comparable with respect to age, sex, and atherosclerotic risk factors. In the CSF group, BAI score, BDI score, and general symptom index were significantly higher than controls (13 [18.7] vs. 7.5 [7], p = 0.01; 11 [14.7] vs. 6.5 [7], p = 0.01; 1.76 [0.81] vs. 1.1[0.24], p = 0.01; respectively). Patients with CSF in more than one vessel had the highest test scores. In univariate correlation analysis, mean thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) frame counts were positively correlated with BAI (r = 0.56, p = 0.01), BDI (r = 0.47, p = 0.01), and general symptom index (r = 0.65, p = 0.01). The psychiatric tests were not correlated with risk factors for atherosclerosis.

Conclusion:

Our study revealed higher rates of depression, anxiety, and overall psychological distress in patients with CSF. This conclusion warrants further studies.