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Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress

Background: Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) are characterized by emotional distress and poor quality of life. Little is known about the relation between emotional distress and subjectively reported AF symptoms. Our aims were to compare emotional distress levels in AF patients with distress le...

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Autores principales: Kupper, Nina, van den Broek, Krista C., Widdershoven, Jos, Denollet, Johan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634051/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23630509
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00192
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author Kupper, Nina
van den Broek, Krista C.
Widdershoven, Jos
Denollet, Johan
author_facet Kupper, Nina
van den Broek, Krista C.
Widdershoven, Jos
Denollet, Johan
author_sort Kupper, Nina
collection PubMed
description Background: Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) are characterized by emotional distress and poor quality of life. Little is known about the relation between emotional distress and subjectively reported AF symptoms. Our aims were to compare emotional distress levels in AF patients with distress levels in the general population and to examine the cross-sectional and prospective relationship between subjective AF symptom reports and emotional distress around electrical cardioversion (ECV). Methods: At baseline, this study included 118 patients with persistent AF planned for ECV (aged 68 ± 10 years, 60% men) in which depression (BDI), anxiety (STAI), Type D personality (DS14), perceived stress (PSS-10), and AF symptoms (ATSSS) were assessed. The prospective substudy included 52 patients. Objective AF status was determined by ECG. Results: AF patients experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety (p < 0.001) and depression (p < 0.001) than age and gender matched persons from the general population. Linear regression analyses showed that AF patients with higher depression levels reported significantly more AF symptoms (β = 0.44; p < 0.0005) and reported symptoms to occur with a higher frequency (β = 0.51; p < 0.0005) during the AF episode, independent of age, sex, cardiac disease, BMI, and physical activity. At 4 weeks follow-up, 56% of all patients had maintained sinus rhythm. Repeated Measures Linear mixed modeling showed that these patients reported fewer AF symptoms and a lower frequency of AF symptoms pre and post-ECV (p = 0.04). Also, the course of the number and frequency of reported symptoms was significantly associated with the change in depression over that same time period (p < 0.0005). Conclusion: Patients with persistent AF are characterized by emotional distress. Distressed AF patients, particularly the depressed, report more AF symptoms before and after ECV. These findings call for increased attention of clinicians to emotional distress in this patient population.
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spelling pubmed-36340512013-04-29 Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress Kupper, Nina van den Broek, Krista C. Widdershoven, Jos Denollet, Johan Front Psychol Psychology Background: Patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) are characterized by emotional distress and poor quality of life. Little is known about the relation between emotional distress and subjectively reported AF symptoms. Our aims were to compare emotional distress levels in AF patients with distress levels in the general population and to examine the cross-sectional and prospective relationship between subjective AF symptom reports and emotional distress around electrical cardioversion (ECV). Methods: At baseline, this study included 118 patients with persistent AF planned for ECV (aged 68 ± 10 years, 60% men) in which depression (BDI), anxiety (STAI), Type D personality (DS14), perceived stress (PSS-10), and AF symptoms (ATSSS) were assessed. The prospective substudy included 52 patients. Objective AF status was determined by ECG. Results: AF patients experienced significantly higher levels of anxiety (p < 0.001) and depression (p < 0.001) than age and gender matched persons from the general population. Linear regression analyses showed that AF patients with higher depression levels reported significantly more AF symptoms (β = 0.44; p < 0.0005) and reported symptoms to occur with a higher frequency (β = 0.51; p < 0.0005) during the AF episode, independent of age, sex, cardiac disease, BMI, and physical activity. At 4 weeks follow-up, 56% of all patients had maintained sinus rhythm. Repeated Measures Linear mixed modeling showed that these patients reported fewer AF symptoms and a lower frequency of AF symptoms pre and post-ECV (p = 0.04). Also, the course of the number and frequency of reported symptoms was significantly associated with the change in depression over that same time period (p < 0.0005). Conclusion: Patients with persistent AF are characterized by emotional distress. Distressed AF patients, particularly the depressed, report more AF symptoms before and after ECV. These findings call for increased attention of clinicians to emotional distress in this patient population. Frontiers Media S.A. 2013-04-24 /pmc/articles/PMC3634051/ /pubmed/23630509 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00192 Text en Copyright © 2013 Kupper, van den Broek, Widdershoven and Denollet. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in other forums, provided the original authors and source are credited and subject to any copyright notices concerning any third-party graphics etc.
spellingShingle Psychology
Kupper, Nina
van den Broek, Krista C.
Widdershoven, Jos
Denollet, Johan
Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress
title Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress
title_full Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress
title_fullStr Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress
title_full_unstemmed Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress
title_short Subjectively Reported Symptoms in Patients with Persistent Atrial Fibrillation and Emotional Distress
title_sort subjectively reported symptoms in patients with persistent atrial fibrillation and emotional distress
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3634051/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23630509
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00192
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