Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-15-2015

Abstract

Depression and anxiety are well-known to be associated with adverse health outcomes in cardiac patients. However, there has been less work synthesizing the effects of positive psychological constructs (e.g., optimism) on health-related outcomes in cardiac patients. We completed a systematic review of prospective observational studies using established guidelines. A search of PubMed and PsycINFO databases from inception to January 2014 was used to identify articles. To be eligible, studies were required to assess effects of a positive psychological construct on subsequent health-related outcomes (including mortality, rehospitalizations, self-reported health status) in patients with established heart disease. Exploratory random effects' meta-analyses were performed on the subset of studies examining mortality or rehospitalizations. Seventy-seven analyses from 30 eligible studies (N = 14,624) were identified. Among studies with 100 or more participants, 65.0% of all analyses and 64.7% of analyses adjusting for one or more covariates reported a significant (p < .05) association between positive psychological constructs and subsequent health outcomes. An exploratory meta-analysis of 11 studies showed that positive constructs were associated with reduced rates of rehospitalization or mortality in unadjusted (odds ratio = .87; 95% confidence interval [.83, .92]; p < .001) and adjusted analyses (odds ratio = .89; 95% confidence interval [.84, .91]; p < .001); there was little suggestion of publication bias. Among cardiac patients, positive psychological constructs appear to be prospectively associated with health outcomes in most but not all studies. Additional work is needed to identify which constructs are most important to cardiac health, and whether interventions can cultivate positive attributes and improve clinical outcomes.

Comments

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in International Journal of Cardiology. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in International Journal of Cardiology, volume 195, in 2015. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijcard.2015.05.121

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Copyright

Elsevier

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Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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