Level of Anxiety and Depression in Cardiac Syndrome X.

OBJECTIVE: Cardiac syndrome X (CSX) is defined as angina-like symptoms, abnormalities on stress testing and normal epicardial coronary arteries on coronary angiography. The aim of this study was to determine the Hospital Anxiety and Depression scores of patients with CSX and to compare with healthy controls. Materials/Subjects and Methods: Patients undergoing coronary angiography between January 2015 and December 2016 because of clinical indications, including abnormal noninvasive test results were examined. Two hundred and ten subjects (110 patients with CSX, 100 controls) were enrolled. Demographic characteristics including age, education level, marriage status, history of stressful life events were recorded. The Turkish version of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) was evaluated in the study population.

RESULTS: The anxiety, depression and total scores in the patients with CSX were significantly higher than control group (p < 0.001, p < 0.003, p < 0.001, respectively). Among women, anxiety, depression, total scores and stressful life events were significantly higher in CSX group (p = 0.006, p = 0.015, p = 0.001, p < 0.001, respectively). Patients with lower educational status had higher anxiety scores (p = 0.03) Stressful life events and HAD-A>10 were the only independent predictors of CSX in logistic regression analysis with comparable odds ratios 2.256 (95% CI 1.057-4.817, p = 0.03) and 2,399 (95% CI 1.248-4.613, p = 0.009), respectively.

CONCLUSION: The results of our research suggest that patients with CSX have a high prevalence of stress and psychiatric disturbances. Interventions targeted toward improving the quality of life and to give psychological support may have the potential benefits especially for women and individuals with lower education.