Anxiety in Heart Failure Patients and its Association with Socio-demographic and Clinical Characteristics: a cross-sectional study

• Autor(a) principal: Filipa Maria Duarte Costa
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://hdl.handle.net/10216/139718
• topic: Medicina clínica; Clinical medicine

Background: Anxiety is one of the most frequent psychiatric disorders in Heart Failure (HF) patients. However, it is often neglected in clinical practice and studies about the particular relationship with the New York Heart Association (NYHA) classes for HF, are scarce. In this context, this study aims to analyse the association between anxiety in HF outpatients, as well as with socio-demographic and clinical characteristics. Methods: This cross-sectional study forms part of the longitudinal Deus Ex-Machina project (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-00026). HF patients were recruited from an outpatient clinic at a University Hospital. Patients with inability to communicate, severe visual/hearing impairment or NYHA class IV were excluded. Sociodemographic data and NYHA classes (I, II, III) were registered. Anxiety was assessed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) (with a score ≥ 10 clinically relevant anxiety). Patients with and without anxiety were compared regarding socio-demographic and clinical variables. Results: The sample (n=136) had a median age of 59 years (Q1:49; Q3:68), 66.2% were male and 31.6% presented clinically relevant anxiety. A higher percentage of HF patients with anxiety had psychiatric disorder (58.1%vs26.9%; p=0.001), psychotropic medication (62.8%vs30.1%; p=0.001) and depression (60.5%vs9.7%; p<0.001). No significant differences were found regarding the remaining variables, including NYHA classes. Conclusions: A substantial proportion of HF patients reveals clinically relevant anxiety, particularly those with psychiatric history, psychotropic medication use and depressive symptoms. Therefore, integrating routine screening and treatment of this comorbidity in clinical practice is of utmost importance. Further studies are needed to build a better understanding of the association between anxiety and HF.