June 21st, 2012
PTSD Relatively Common Among Patients with Heart Disease
Roughly 1 in 8 patients with acute coronary syndromes (ACS) subsequently suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a meta-analysis in PLoS ONE.
Researchers analyzed 24 studies comprising nearly 2400 patients with ACS. At a mean 5.7 months following an ACS event, 12% of the patients had clinically significant symptoms of PTSD assessed by questionnaires or clinical interviews. An analysis of three studies found that those with PTSD had double the risk for a subsequent cardiac event or mortality.
The authors caution that PTSD prevalence in the individual studies ranged from 0% to 32%, suggesting considerable heterogeneity. “Caveats aside,” they write, “there is now considerable evidence for a link between PTSD due to various life stressors and subsequent heart disease.” They propose that the effects of inflammation associated with PTSD may also affect the heart.
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