Year: 2012
Type: editorial
Abstract: A lthough medical factors predisposing to atrial fibrillation(AF) are well described, whether and how psychosocial factors influence the development of AF remains a nearly unex-amined area. In this respect, AF lags far behind other cardiovas-cular conditions, such as coronary artery disease and ventric-ular arrhythmia, in which relationships between psychosocial factors and cardiac disease have been well established. De-pression predicts the recurrence of ventricular arrhythmia in patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators over the long term,1,2 and negative emotions such as anger can acutely trigger ventricular arrhythmias in this population.3 Although the attempts of AF patients to identify psychosocial triggers for their episodes are familiar to all who participate in the care of these patients, to date, large systematic studies evaluating how emotion may affect AF are lacking. There is one small study of 54 AF patients undergoing cardioversion, in which
Author: Rachel Lampert
Institution: Yale University
Language: English
Subfield: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,810
OpenAlex ID: W2129357068