Key result
Psychological factors such as panic disorder, depression, and anxiety are highly prevalent among the approximately 30% of cardiology patients presenting with chest pain and normal coronary arteries.
Highlights the significant role of psychological factors, such as panic disorder and anxiety, in patients presenting with non-cardiac chest pain.
Supports psychological evaluation in noncardiac chest pain; leaves open whether interventions improve outcomes.
Approximately 30% of patients visiting a cardiologist for the first time with complaints of chest pain appear to have normal coronary arteries. These patients generally have a higher prevalence of atypical chest pain, are relatively young, often female, in most cases suffer from panic disorder and have high scores on depression and anxiety scales. In this article some of the recent studies conducted in this particular line of research are reviewed and some possible explanations for the relationship between complaints and non-cardiac findings are presented. Furthermore, the ability of predicting non-cardiac chest pain from psychological factors and a range of follow-up studies are discussed. Finally the possibilities of treating cardiac phobia are mentioned.
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Serlie et al. (2010) conducted a review in Non-cardiac chest pain. Psychological factors such as panic disorder, depression, and anxiety are highly prevalent among the approximately 30% of cardiology patients presenting with chest pain and normal coronary arteries.
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