The Perception of Cardiac Activity in Medical Outpatients

Abstract

This study compared several measures of cardiac perception and related them to patient’ spontaneous reports of palpitations. One hundred and forty-five ambulatory patients referred for Holter monitoring for the evaluation of palpitations were compared with 70 asymptomatic nonpatients. Reports of palpitations during monitoring were compared with the ECG to determine whether they coincided with an arrhythmia. Subjects also completed a heartbeat detection task to determine whether they were accurately aware of cardiac systole while at rest. 20.7% of palpitation patients and 4.7% of asymptomatic controls demonstrated an accurate awareness of resting heartbeat (p = 0.01). Performance was unrelated to bodily amplification, somatization, hypochondriacal symptoms, ECG findings, or psychiatric morbidity. 34.3% of palpitation patients reported symptoms that consistently coincided with arrhythmias on ECG. These accurate patients had significantly lower levels of amplification, somatization, hypochondriacal symptoms, and psychiatric morbidity. Accuracy of symptom reporting and accuracy of heartbeat awareness were not statistically associated. Although accurate awareness of resting heartbeat appears to be unrelated to medical experiences and psychiatric status, the accurate perception of arrhythmias during daily activity is inversely correlated with clinical variables such as somatization and psychiatric distress.

Psychometric investigation of the Hungarian version of the Body Awareness Questionnaire (BAQ-H) among yoga practitioners and young adult controls

“…Mindezt mi sem szemlélteti jobban annál a sokszorosan igazolt ténynél, miszerint -mind hipochonder betegek, mind egészséges személyek esetében -rendszerint gyenge együttjárást sikerül kimutatni a valós élettani háttértörténések (pl. szívfrekvencia, vérnyomás) és azok tudatos reprezentációja között (Barr, Pennebaker, & Watson, 1988;Barsky, Brener, Coeytaux, & Cleary, 1995;Barsky, Cleary, Brener, & Ruskin, 1993;Baumann & Leventhal, 1985;Dömötör, Szemerszky, & Köteles, megjelenés alatt;Pennebaker, 1982;Pennebaker & Watson, 1988;Steptoe & Noll, 1997). A testi tudatossággal kapcsolatos különféle elméleti és gyakorlati problémákról két korábbi publikációban (Köteles és mtsai, 2009;Köteles, Simor, & Tolnai, 2012) részletesen is szó esett, így jelen munka esetében csak a vizsgált kérdôív elméleti hátterének megértéséhez feltét-lenül szükséges szempontok kerülnek ismertetésre.…”

Psychometric evaluation of the Hungarian version of the Somatic Absorption Scale

“…Súlyosabb esetekben ilyenkor rendszerint a figyelem elterelését javasolják. Kiderült az is, hogy ez a fajta diffúz, érzelmekhez kapcsolt figyelem valójában rontja a testi történések észlelésének képességét (Bar sky, Cleary, Brener, & Ruskin, 1993;Barsky, Cleary, Sarnie, & Ruskin, 1994), vagyis a beteg ezekben az esetekben sokkal inkább a vélt, mint a valós tü-netekkel van elfoglalva.…”

Gender Differences in the Association of Cardiovascular Symptoms and Somatosensory Amplification to Mortality

“…To test these competing hypotheses, studies have used the Brener-Kluvitse procedure to detect resting heartbeat,13, 26 Holter monitor tests to detect cardiac arrhythmias,27 and the Method of Constant Stimuli to detect heartbeat,28 and then compared these measures of physiological phenomena to symptom reports. These studies found that persons scoring high on amplification scales were no more sensitive to cardiac functioning than those with low scores; in fact, high amplifiers were often less aware of arrhythmias than low amplifiers 27, 28. This led to the conclusion that amplification may represent a “global proclivity to feel uncomfortable” (313) 27.…”

“…These studies found that persons scoring high on amplification scales were no more sensitive to cardiac functioning than those with low scores; in fact, high amplifiers were often less aware of arrhythmias than low amplifiers 27, 28. This led to the conclusion that amplification may represent a “global proclivity to feel uncomfortable” (313) 27. Studies on reports of the severity of upper respiratory infection (URI) found that amplification was a better predictor of somatic symptoms and overall discomfort than were objective clinical symptom measures 18, 20.…”