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Approaches to Cardiovascular Diseases

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Stress and Somatic Symptoms

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Abstract

Potential psychosocial risk factors of coronary heart disease (CHD) include type A personality, hostility and anger, alexithymia, type D personality, stress, depression, anxiety, denial, and social support. These patients often show psychopathology such as anxiety, depression, and delirium. Psychotherapeutic interventions and psychopharmacotherapy for these psychopathologies were reviewed. Psychotherapeutic interventions with heart disease patient are aimed at reducing anxiety and depression, enhancing compliance, and modifying risk factors. To treat them effectively, the clinician should look beyond the symptoms to their function and meaning. In psychopharmacotherapy, interactions between cardiac drugs and psychiatric drugs need to be examined in addition to cardiac side effects of psychiatric drugs and psychiatric side effects of cardiovascular drugs. For the mentally ill cardiac patients, it is desirable to combine psychiatric treatment with a cardiac rehabilitation. Physicians need to keep in mind that countertransference might influence the progress of a cardiac disease.

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  1. Department of Psychiatry, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea

    Kyung Bong Koh

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Koh, K.B. (2018). Approaches to Cardiovascular Diseases. In: Stress and Somatic Symptoms. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02783-4_20

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