Emotional Stress Triggers Symptoms in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: A Survey of the Hypertrophic

Cardiomyopathy Association

In the article titled: "Emotional Stress Triggers Symptoms in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy: A Survey of the Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association " written by Rachel Lampert, Lisa Salberg, and Matthew Burg, the authors discuss symptoms as being the most important factor impacting quality of life in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy patients. They set out to create and send to several HCM patients via email, a survey. They did this so they can assess what kinds of symptoms these patients experienced with HCM. The survey also enabled patients to report emotional quality of life on a 1-10 Likert scale.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis: can emotions trigger symptoms in patients with HCM along with decreasing quality of life? As explained in the introduction by Lambert et al. (2010): "Further, emotional stressors can alter electrophysiological properties of the myocardium associated with arrhythmogenesis in other populations, suggesting that emotion could potentially be arrhythmogenic in patients with HCM, precipitating symptoms of palpitations or syncope" (LAMPERT, SALBERG, & BURG, 2010, p. 1047)

III. Sample

The participants were selected from the HCMA or Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association. "The Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Association (HCMA) is a not-for-profit organization formed in 1996 to provide information, support, and advocacy to patients with HCM, their families, and medical providers" (LAMPERT, SALBERG, & BURG, 2010, p. 1047). The total number of respondents were 1,297 and they were given a time frame of May 2007 to November 2008 or 18 months to respond to the surveys. As mentioned before, the electronic link to the surveys were sent via email. These links were also on the HCMA message board and homepage.

The disease observed in the study is HCM or Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy. HCM is rare in young adults with only...

The various symptoms associated with HCM are chest pain, dyspnea, palpitations, and syncope. Symptoms play a major role in determining quality of life as well as offer insight in prognosis outcome. The reason for this study was to help offer insight in how emotional stress affects individuals with HCM as not a lot of research provides information on this topic. As mentioned in the article:
The survey queried demographic and self-reported clinical information, as well as information regarding presence of symptoms (fainting / syncope, near-syncope, or lightheadedness; [grouped for analysis], chest pain; palpitations; shortness of breath) and presence of symptoms with specific activities (meals, climbing stairs, walking up a hill, lying flat, under emotional stress) (LAMPERT, SALBERG, & BURG, 2010, p. 1047).

IV. Method

LAMPERT, SALBERG, & BURG utilized the Likert scale to determine QOL or quality of life. JMP 5.0.1a was used to determine all of the statistical analyses. QOL scores were compared through the use of t-test. Logistic regression examined associations of gender and clinical factors.

V. Findings

The respondents demonstrated varied factors with 675 or 868, having HCM themselves, 19% or 250 responding for their child and 13% or 163 responding for their significant other or family member, lastly 1% or 14 respondents were answering the questions of the survey for their friend. A little over half or 58% of the respondents were male, with an average age of 44 years. The article states: "Symptoms reported included chest pain (n = 637, 49%), dyspnea (n = 906, 70%), palpitations (n = 799, 61%), and syncope or lightheadedness (n = 771, 59%)" (LAMPERT, SALBERG, & BURG, 2010, p. 1047). The results also revealed that most of the respondents reported more than one symptom. Of the symptom triggers analyzed, the most common and persistent one was exertion with 64% describing this symptom when performing any…