Presence of severe marital stress tied to poor 1-year outcomes after acute MI
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
CHICAGO — Severe marital stress was associated with reduced physical and mental health and increased all-cause readmission in the 1 year following acute MI, a speaker reported.
The association between marital stress and poor outcomes following acute MI remained significant even after adjustment for socioeconomic factors, according to data presented at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions.
Source: Adobe Stock
“For young adults who had a heart attack, there’s an independent association between severe marital stress and worse 1-year recovery,” Cenjing Zhu, M.Phil, PhD candidate at the Yale School of Public Health, told Healio. “Our findings highlight the importance of evaluating everyday stress among young cardiac patients during their follow-up visits, and the need for targeted interventions to screen and manage their stress levels.”
Researchers used data from the Variation in Recovery: Role of Gender on Outcomes of Young AMI Patients (VIRGO) study, which evaluated sex differences in 1-year health status outcomes after acute MI among patients aged 55 years or younger.
As Healio previously reported, the findings of the VIRGO study indicated that women 55 years and younger may be more likely to have poor outcomes after acute MI compared with men the same age.
For the present analysis of the VIRGO study, marital stressors and relationship quality among 1,593 participants (mean age, 47 years; 75% white; more than two-thirds women) were measured using the 17-item Stockholm Marital Stress Scale questionnaire. Participants were grouped as having absent/mild (scores 0-2), moderate (scores 3-4) or severe marital stress (scores 5).
The primary outcomes were self-reported physical and mental health status, generic/disease-specific quality of life, angina, depressive symptoms and all-cause readmission 1 year after acute MI.
Researchers observed that more women reported severe marital stress compared with men (39.4% vs. 30.4%; P = .001).
Compared with participants with absent/mild or moderate marital stress, those with severe marital stress had poorer physical health (P = .025), mental health (P < .001) and all-around quality of life (P < .001) and more angina (P < .001), depressive symptoms (P = .062) and all-cause hospital readmission (P = .008) at 1 year after acute MI.
Zhu stated that an updated analysis showed the association between severe marital stress and outcomes remained significant even after adjustment for socioeconomic factors.
“We are not surprised by the result. Prior studies have linked psychological stress with worse CV outcomes,” Zhu told Healio. “In younger heart attack patients, we found that marital stress had an independent association with worse outcomes after adjustment. This highlights the role of everyday stress in younger adults' recovery from a heart attack and informs future efforts in screening and managing patients' stress levels. While it could be possible that psychosocial and socioeconomic factors may have an impact on this relationship, further research is encouraged to explore the complex relationship between different stressors and heart attack outcomes.”
Reference:
- Marital stress linked to worse recovery after heart attack. newsroom.heart.org/news/marital-stress-linked-to-worse-recovery-after-heart-attack. Published Oct. 31, 2022. Accessed Nov. 3, 2022.
Collapse
Zhu C, et al. Abstract SU3051. Presented at: American Heart Association Scientific Sessions; Nov. 5-7, 2022; Chicago (hybrid meeting).
Read more about
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts