Psychologic Effects of Heart Surgery

A new study finds that the perception of body image in patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) is the strongest factor in their psychologic recovery.

Researchers from the Hannover Medical School (Germany) carried out standardized interviews in 361 patients (aged 14-45 years) with surgically corrected congestive heart failure (CHF). From these data, findings from 343 patients were suitable for analysis. Subjectively reported limitations in activity were classified according to the system proposed by the New York Heart Association, while cardiopulmonary capacity was used as the indicator of cardiac performance. The Brief Symptom Inventory was used for assessing psychologic symptoms, such as somatization, obsession-compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism. The Body Image Questionnaire was used to depict attitudes towards body image, which is assessed on the two subscales of rejection of the body and vitality. Analyses were conducted separately for females and males, taking into account age and socio-economic position.

The researchers found the impairments of everyday activities had only a few substantial associations with psychologic symptoms. No significant effects of cardiac functional capacity as a standardized physiologic measure emerged. Psychologic symptoms were strongly influenced by perceptions of body image, particularly if they rejected it, this holding particularly for males; there were no gender differences in terms of psychologic symptoms. The results were published in the December 2006 issue of Cardiology in the Young.

"Limitations of activity, and impaired cardiac performance, have only minor effects on psychologic symptoms in patients with surgically corrected congenital cardiac disease,” concluded lead author Dr. Siegfried Geyer of the medical sociology unit and colleagues. "The perception of body image was the strongest predictor, especially if patients rejected their body as a result of disfigurement or perceived deficiency.”


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Hannover Medical School