engleski

Body mass index and illness perception as determinants of depressive symptomatology among cardiac patients

Introduction: Overweight and obesity impact the whole cardiovascular system and are linked with many forms ofcardiovascular disease (CVD). Depression is commonly present in patients with CVD. It triples the risk of noncompliance with medical treatment regimens and reduces the chances of successful modifications of other cardiac risk factors. As such, depression is associated with increased cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The present study aims to exam the determinants of depressive symptomatology in men with CVD. Methods: The research was conducted on a sample of male cardiac patients. A total of 125 men were enrolled in the study, 47% of the subjects were overweight and 28% were obese. The subjects ranged in age between 35 and 89 years (M = 61.97, SD = 11.69). Depression was assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the patient´s perceptions of their illness (identity, timeline, consequences, personal control, treatment control, illness coherence, timeline cyclical and emotional representations) were evaluated using the Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire (IPQ- R), and body mass index (BMI) was calculated as weight divided by height squared. Results: The regression analysis results indicated that measured variables accounted for a significant proportion of the variance in depression (42%) in men with CVD. BMI and some of the components of illness perception (namely, identity, treatment control and emotional representations) were significant predictors of depression, even after including age and professional status as control variables in the analysis. The higher level of body mass index, strongly held beliefs about the number of symptoms attributed to the CVD, the more negative beliefs about the effectiveness of the treatment, and negative emotional representations(fear, anxiety, and anger) are found to be potential risk factors for the development of depressive symptoms in men with CVD. Conclusion: The results from the present study show that objective as well as subjectivefeatures of an individual may play the significant role in the course of depressive symptomatology among cardiac patients. These findings are of clinical importance, suggesting that working on losing weight and modifying maladaptive illness perceptions may reduce depressive symptomatology in obesemen with CVD, and, consequently, affect health behaviors and CVD recovery.

Body mass index, illness perception, depressive symptomatology, cardiac patients

Research relating to this abstract was funded by the University of Rijeka, project number 13.04.1.3.07.