Short-Term Psychological Intervention in the Management of Psychological Factors Among Women Referred to the Women`s Heart Clinic

Background: Many researches show that psychological factors have a major role in the course, outcome and treatment of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Whether short-term psychological intervention (STPI) can change those factors is unknown.

Hypothesis: Women, who undergo STPI (1-5 meetings), will have lower reported rates of depression anxiety and stress, and better CVD illness perception and quality of life (QOL) compared to women without STPI.

Method and Results: 69 women, referred to the Women` Heart Clinic were evaluated prospectively, by using 2 identical sets of 5 validated psychological questionnaires (at the time of visit and 1-4 months later), assessing depression, anxiety, stress , QOL and illness perception .

21 (30.4%) women underwent STPI after the first set of questioners. 41(85.4%) had no STPI and were evaluated as controls. 7(14.5%), underwent past STPI in the clinic before the first questioner. The mean age was 55.9+11.6, 33.3% were high-school graduates and 62.2% had academic degrees. 31.9% were with established CVD and 68.1% with multiple CVD risk factors.

Statistic evaluation was done by SPSS software .The Wilcoxon signed rank test and the Mann-Whitney tests were used.

Results: Within the treatment group, anxiety, stress and illness perception means were lower post STPI than pre STPI. STPI effectively reduced anxiety and stress, and improved illness perception.
Comparison between STPI and control yielded mean rank differences in favor of STPI group. Compared to control, STPI was efficient in all parameters except for physical QOL (Table 1).

Clinical implications: This current research is pioneer in the field of medical psychology and women`s CVD health. STPI proved to be efficient in reducing anxiety and stress in women, compared to controls. In light of the adverse impact of psychological factors on CVD health in women, we suggest more liberal use of STPI to all women with CVD and risk factors.

Table 1: Differences between two sets of questionnaires

*Z score is the statistic value by Wilcoxon signed rank test, of the comparison between pre and post STPI within the STPI group.

**U value is the statistic value by the Mann-Whitney U test, of the differences between two sets of questionnaires, between STPI group and control group.

p value of ≤0.05 is statistically significant.

p value of