Psychopathology and Symptoms of Atrial Fibrillation: Implications for Therapy

Psychopathology and Symptoms of Atrial Fibrillation. Introduction: Current guidelines recommend that the choice of AF management strategy be guided by the symptomatic status of the patient when in AF. However, little is known regarding what drives AF symptoms. Several limited studies suggest that psychological distress may be linked with AF symptom severity. Methods: A total of 300 patients with documented AF completed a questionnaire assessing general health and well‐being, including a comprehensive psychological assessment as well as disease‐specific measures of AF symptom severity. AF burden was determined by 1‐week continuous looping monitor in a subset of patients. Analysis of covariance was used to determine the association between individual measures of depression, anxiety, and somatization disorder symptom severity with measures of general health status and AF‐specific symptom severity, adjusting for important confounders. Results: Patients with worsened severity of depression, anxiety, or somatization disorder symptoms had an associated increase in the severity of symptoms attributed to AF regardless of AF severity scale used (P