Research is needed to better understand how anxiety affects heart patients
Anxiety is a prevalent issue among individuals with cardiovascular disease. As many as four in 10 patients with coronary artery disease report symptoms of anxiety during hospitalization or immediately post event.
In collaboration with Dr. Heather Tulloch and Dr. Thais Coutinho, we published a review on anxiety and women with cardiovascular disease, and argue that what we know is just the tip of the iceberg.
“Our review highlights the need to better understand the links between anxiety and cardiovascular disease, especially among women,” says Dr. Karen Bouchard, an author of the paper published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. “The prevalence of anxiety in women is about two to three times higher than in men,” she said. “But we’ve only started scratching the surface on understanding the effects of this anxiety. The sample sizes are too small and disproportionate to discern how anxiety affects women versus men.”
“What we know about the connections between mental health and cardiovascular disease risk are predominantly informed by studies that have been performed on men,” she said. “I believe what we currently understand about anxiety in women is just the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot more we can learn if we leverage data that includes larger female samples.”
