Background and
Objectives:
Anxiety is frequently encountered in
acute coronary syndrome. It is believed that the
prevalence of
anxiety among cardiac
patients is between 15 and 50%. The
goal of our study was to determine whether there is an
association between current
anxiety and
anxiety tendency in
patients with
acute coronary syndrome. A
secondary goal was to establish possible distinct features of
acute coronary syndromes in
patients with the
anxiety.
Methods and
results:
Our study included 30
patients suffering from
acute coronary syndrome. To obtain additional data on physical and
mental health, we applied specially designed and validated
questionnaires. In a groups without the
anxiety and intensive
anxiety there were no
patients, while in the group with mild
anxiety there were 21
patients (70%) and 9
patients had moderate
anxiety (30%). The average number of
hospital treatments was significantly higher in
patients with moderate
anxiety (average 2.3).
Patients who were first
time hospitalized due to
cardiovascular disease, at the highest percentage (81%) had low current
anxiety. Those
patients who had intensive
anxiety traits and propensity to
anxiety response had the highest average number of
hospital days (9 days).
Patients who had intensive
anxiety traits had the lowest values of internal
locus of control (had
feeling that only themselves were cause of the
disease).
Conclusions:
Current
anxiety and anxious
personality structure are strongly associated with the
course of the
coronary heart disease. In particular, this refers to the length of
hospital stay and number of
hospitalizations (AU)