Psychological impact of heart disease

Being diagnosed with coronary artery disease can have a major psychological impact on patients, and individual and condition-specific differences have been reported in the literature. What is clear overall is that psychological disorders are more prevalent among patients with coronary artery disease than equivalent general population samples without chronic conditions. Coronary artery disease severity does not seem to completely account for this higher prevalence. Depressive and anxiety disorders are the most common to impact patients with coronary artery disease, and will be the main focus of this chapter.