Psychosocial and physical long-term outcome in patients with a history of takotsubo cardiomyopathy or myocardial infarction - a multi-centered case control study

Abstract

Physical long-term impacts of Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy (TTC) remain controversial and an underestimation of their severity becomes increasingly evident. Even less is known about mental long-term impacts of TTC. This study aims at a better understanding of the physical and mental long-term effects of TTC in comparison to myocardial infarctions (MI). On average 5 years after disease onset, 68 TTC patients and 68 age-and sex-matched MI patients were assessed for disease-related quality of life, depression, anxiety, chronic stress, social support, resilience, and life events prior to disease onset. Scores of TTC and MI patients were compared to each other and to normative references values. Regression analyses were used to evaluate the predictive value of the number of life events prior to disease onset for physical and mental long-term outcomes. Both groups displayed higher scores in depression and anxiety, higher levels of chronic stress, and lower scores in physical and mental quality of life in comparison to norm samples, while social support did not differ from norms. No differences between the two patient groups were observed. Within both groups, the majority of patients (TTC: 69.1%; MI: 60.3%) reported stressful life events prior to disease onset. In TTCs and MIs, the number of events had a significant impact on long-term mental health and chronic stress. Notably, both patient collectives scored higher in resilience than healthy controls. Results suggest negative long-term impacts of TTC on mental and physical wellbeing, comparable to those of MI. Besides a good ARTICLE HISTORY

Psychocardiological assessment in the acute phase of the takotsubo syndrome

“…These results are contrary to a recent study on resilience in TTS patients. Olliges et al found higher than normal scores of resilience in TTS patients [32]. Considering that their TTS patients were examined nearly 5 years after the TTS diagnosis, our results suggest that the resilience scores, evaluated in the acute phase, are decreased in some TTS patients.…”

Prevalence and influencing factors of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder in patients with myocardial infarction, transient ischemic attack (TIA) and stroke – an exploratory, descriptive study

“…Cerebral and cardiovascular events may increase the risk of developing chronic PTSD. There has been an abundance of evidence, particularly in recent years, demonstrating the enormous influence of psychological factors not only on HRQoL but also on the course of the disease and the survival chances of patients with MI, TIA or stroke [44][45][46]. These concepts and the corresponding therapeutic approaches are hardly known in the routine medical care of these patients.…”

The Efficiency of Attentional Networks in Takostubo Syndrome: A Study With the Attentional Network Task for Interaction

“…Although TTS is acknowledged as a transitional cardiac condition, the data on its morbidity and mortality rates is heterogeneous. While some authors have reported a higher impact of TTS on health (involving also psychiatric and neurologic disorders; Templin et al, 2015) compared to other cardiovascular syndromes, other authors have reported a similar (Olliges et al, 2020) or less severe impact (Cacciotti et al, 2012). TTS is considered as a stress-induced cardiomyopathy, associated with an inadequate management of life events (Casagrande et al, 2021), which can generate high stress levels representing the starting point of a cascade of physiological events that induce the transitive cardiac event.…”