Innapropriate sinus tachycardia – cardiac syndrome or anxiety-related disorder?

Abstract

Introduction

Relation between psychology, psychiatry and cardiology are multidimensional and begin to have growing importance in the diagnosis and treatment of patients of cardiosurgery, electrocardiology and cardiac rehabilitation. Inappropriate sinus tachycardia (IST) is a rarely diagnosed clinical syndrome characterized by excessive resting heart rate (HR) or disproportional increasing HR during exercise. The mechanisms of IST are not well understood. It is speculated that psychological factors might be of importance.

Aims

The purpose of the study was to evaluate possible relation between the level of anxiety, personality traits and control of emotions, emotional intelligence, coping with stress strategies and manifestation of IST.

Methods

The participants were 23 women with a diagnosis of IST (age range 31.8 ± 8.72) and 23 women (28.7 ± 4.4) without cardiac diseases. The research applied psychological tools including: State–Trait Anxiety Inventory, NEO-Five Factor Inventory, Courtauld Emotional Control Scale, Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire, Coping Inventory for Stressful Situations and an originally developed sociodemographic questionnaire.

Results

It has been found that that the group of women with IST received higher results in Trait Anxiety Inventory compared to the group of healthy women and the relation was highly statistically significant (P = 0,009). No other differences were found.

Conclusions

Inappropriate sinus tachycardia can be considered as an anxiety related disorder. However, its pathogenesis and classification position remains elusive.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.