Heart-Focused Anxiety Affects Behavioral Cardiac Risk Factors and Quality of Life: A Follow-Up Study Using a Psycho-Cardiological Rehabilitation Concept.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Heart-focused anxiety (HFA) raises the risk for adverse outcomes in patients with heart disease. Despite this great importance, it is rarely assessed in clinical practice. Three dimensions are commonly defined in the context of HFA: heart-related fear, avoidance, and attention. The impact of these aspects on cardiac risk factors is essentially unclear. In this study, we investigated the relationship between HFA and behavioral cardiac risk factors as well as health-related quality of life (HRQoL), which represent important treatment outcomes of inpatient psycho-cardiological rehabilitation.

Methods

A prospective observational design was used to examine 238 rehabilitation inpatients with comorbidity of cardiac disease and psychiatric disorder. We assessed HFA using

SUBMITTER: Schmitz C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9124936 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature