By Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter
(Health day)
WEDNESDAY, Nov. 9, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Assessing a person’s psychological stress may be a good way to gauge their risk of heart and blood vessel disease, new research suggests.
And a brief questionnaire could help with the evaluation, the study findings showed.
“Our study is part of the accumulating evidence that psychological distress is a really important factor in a cardiovascular diagnosis, like other health behaviors and risk factors, such as physical activity and cholesterol levels, that doctors monitor,” the co-author said. emily gathright. She is an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University’s Warren Alpert School of Medicine in Providence, Rhode Island.
For the study, the team analyzed research published in the past five years that included adults without a psychiatric diagnosis who were screened for depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, stress, or general mental health symptoms, and were followed for more than six years. months. . About 58% were women.
In all, Gathright and colleagues analyzed the findings of 28 studies that included more than 658,000 patients. Those who reported high levels of psychological distress had a 28 percent increased risk of heart disease, the researchers found.
According to study co-author Carly Goldsteinassistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior, a short mental health questionnaire can give doctors a better idea of not only a patient’s mental health risks, but also the associated risk of heart disease.
Based on the results of the questionnaire, the doctor can immediately advise the patient on how improving their mental health can help them improve their heart health, he added.
“This analysis shows that a patient’s psychological distress is directly associated with their cardiovascular risk, providing opportunities for clinicians to help a patient manage their risks over time, for better overall health, right at the point of attention,” Goldstein said in a Brown University study. Press release.
Before the study, it wasn’t known whether a brief mental health exam would help predict heart disease risk, he noted.
Most research examining links between psychological health and heart disease has focused on people who have already been diagnosed, study co-author said allison gaffeyclinical psychologist at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Conn., who completed her predoctoral internship at Brown School of Medicine.
“Certainly we know that psychological health is important within the scope of care management,” Gaffey said.
The screening tests used in the studies were brief and well-known, and could be administered with confidence by any clinical provider, he noted.
“We believe that the use of these brief screeners, whether in a hospital or community health care setting, provides useful information for understanding cardiovascular disease risk in a very multidimensional way compared to using more standard screeners, such as blood pressure or cholesterol levels. Gaffey said.
Even without meeting criteria for high psychological distress, patients showing any distress may benefit from additional support to help prevent heart disease, he added.
The researchers noted that while the updated American Heart Association guidelines added “healthy sleep” as an essential aspect of good heart health, they did not include “managing stress and mental health.”
That checklist should be expanded to include good mental health, the team suggested.
Depression was the most common aspect of psychological distress measured in the studies reviewed, Goldstein said, indicating that screening should also try to measure anxiety.
“I would encourage all providers, cardiovascular and specialty providers, as well as primary care providers, to do some sort of brief psychological distress assessment to assess cardiovascular risk,” he advised. “And I would say that each provider’s office can make brief recommendations to patients that justify them, which can be as simple as pointing to free and publicly available mental health resources.”
Mental health support recommendations can also make a difference in a patient’s overall health, Goldstein said.
SOURCE: Brown University, press release, November 7, 2022
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