Bereavement has been linked to an increased risk of death in heart failure patients, a new study suggests.
After numerous studies on how depression, anxiety and low social support can have an impact on heart failure, this is the first study that relates the heart condition to the loss of a family member.
The study, published in JACC: Heart Failure, looked at almost 50,000 patients from the Swedish Heart Failure Registry during 2000-2018 and at patients with a primary diagnosis of heart failure from the Swedish Patient Register during 1987-2018.
Information on date and cause of family member deaths was obtained from the Cause of Death Register.
The association between an increased heart failure mortality risk and bereavement was observed after the loss of a spouse/partner (a 20 per cent increased risk), of a child (a 10 per cent increased risk), grandchild (a 5 per cent increased risk) or of a sibling (a 13 per cent increased risk), but not after death of a parent.
The risk of heart failure was higher during the first week of bereavement (a 78 per cent increased risk), particularly in the case of death of a child (a 31 per cent increased risk) or of a spouse/partner (a 113 per cent increased risk).
“The association between bereavement and mortality was not only observed in cases of loss due to cardiovascular disease and other natural causes, but also in cases of unnatural deaths, said Hua Che, lead author of the study. “Our finding that bereavement was associated with mortality in heart failure patients contributes to an extends the existing literature regarding role of stress in prognosis of heart failure and is consistent with studies reporting associations between bereavement and increased risk of incident cardiovascular conditions.”
Krisztina László, senior author of the study, added “The findings of the study may call for increased attention from family members, friends and involved professionals for bereaved heart failure patients, particularly in the period shortly after the loss.”
