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Heart Rate Recovery After Exercise in Outpatients with Coronary Heart Disease: Role of Depressive Symptoms and Positive Affect

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Abstract

Heart rate recovery after 1 min of exercise cessation (HRR-1) is an important prognostic factor in patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD). We aimed to further elucidate the association between HRR-1 and known psychosocial risk factors in patients referred for comprehensive cardiac rehabilitation. We examined 521 patients with coronary heart disease in the first week of an outpatient cardiac rehabilitation program. Depressive and anxiety symptoms were measured with the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale, and positive (PA) and negative affect were rated with the Global Mood Scale. Depressive symptoms showed a significant inverse relationship with HRR-1 (p < .05), controlling for sociodemographic and medical covariates, whereas anxiety symptoms did not show a significant association. PA made a significant contribution to HRR-1 as well (p < .05). Our findings suggest an independent association between HRR-1 and psychosocial risk factors of CVD.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Psychosomatic Medicine, Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, 3010, Bern, Switzerland

    Stefanie Stauber

  2. Department of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Thun Hospital, Thun, Switzerland

    Tina Rohrbach

  3. Preventive Cardiology and Sports Medicine, Swiss Cardiovascular Centre, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, Bern, Switzerland

    Hugo Saner

  4. Department of Cardiology, Clinic Barmelweid, Barmelweid, Switzerland

    Jean Paul Schmid

  5. Division of Psychosomatic Medicine, Department of Neurology, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland

    Johannes Grolimund

  6. Department of Psychosomatic Medicine, Clinic Barmelweid, 5017, Barmelweid, Switzerland

    Roland von Känel

Authors
  1. Stefanie Stauber
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  2. Tina Rohrbach
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  3. Hugo Saner
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  4. Jean Paul Schmid
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  5. Johannes Grolimund
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  6. Roland von Känel
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Correspondence to Stefanie Stauber.

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Conflict of interest

Stefanie Stauber, Tina Rohrbach, Hugo Saner, Jean Paul Schmid, Johannes Grolimund, and Roland von Känel declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

All procedures involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Stauber, S., Rohrbach, T., Saner, H. et al. Heart Rate Recovery After Exercise in Outpatients with Coronary Heart Disease: Role of Depressive Symptoms and Positive Affect. J Clin Psychol Med Settings 24, 376–384 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-017-9511-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-017-9511-1

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