STRESS AND THE
MANAGEMENT OF CVD
The role of psychosocial interventions in
CVD management is not the primary focus
of this review. Research in this field has been
dominated over the past decade by studies of
depression management. However, the failure
of depression-management trials based on
cognitive-behavior therapy (6) and pharmacotherapy
(31, 112) to document beneficial
effects on cardiac outcomes has led to questioning
of the nature of depression in patients with
CHD (85). Stress management has also been
applied both to improve emotional adaptation
and to positively impact physical health. Reviews
of this literature have come to divergent
conclusions about the benefits of psychological
interventions, with little consistent evidence
of effects on cardiovascular outcomes (64,
117). A new generation of stress-management
interventions both for CHD in general (36) and
for specific issues such as ICD discharge (21)
are emerging, which may allow investigators
to draw more definitive conclusions.
CONCLUSIONS
The study of stress and CVD requires the
integration of epidemiological research with
focused clinical and experimental mechanistic
studies. The predominance of observational
designs means that causal conclusions are
difficult to draw. Nevertheless, the weight of
existing evidence suggests that work stress,
social isolation, and loneliness play a role
in the long-term etiology of CHD and that
effects may be mediated in part by metabolic
dysfunction. Evidence for the role of stress in
hypertension is stronger in mechanistic than in
population-level longitudinal studies, possibly
because mechanistic studies focus on the interaction
between stress exposure and individual
differences in stress responsivity rather than
on the stress exposure alone. Acute emotional
stress also appears to play a part in triggering
some acute MIs and other cardiac events such
as tachyarrhythmia and stress cardiomyopathy.
There is as yet limited evidence for the role of
stress in prognosis following MI.
We have previously recommended that future
work needs to involve more extensive pooling
of studies to carry out individual participant
meta-analysis; that there needs to be more
extensive study of the role of psychological
stress in other cardiovascular outcomes, such
as stroke, apart from CHD; and that natural
experiments and designs involving exogenous
factors should be used to help test causality
more rigorously (103). Additionally, a literature
on the protective effect of positive psychological
well-being in relation to CVD is emerging
that may provide a counterpoint to research on
stress (7). The major challenge over the next