People under the age of 55 who are experiencing marital problems may have a worse recovery from a heart attack. Conclusions suggest that ordinary stresses, such as marital strain, may hinder young individuals’ ability to recover from heart attacks. The American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2022 will take place in Chicago in person and online from November 5 to 7, 2022. This is where the preliminary research will be presented.
The research looked at 1,593 young adults between the ages of 18 and 55 who were hospitalized in one of 103 facilities across 30 states due to a heart attack. At the same time that they were enrolled in VIRGO, or “Variation in Recovery: Role of Gender on Outcomes of Young AMI Patients,” these adults also participated in another study. According to the press release, more than two-thirds of the study participants were female, and all of them were married or in a serious relationship when they suffered a heart attack.
Participants were asked to complete the Stockholm Marital Stress Scale one month following their heart attack, and were then classified as having “absent/mild,” “moderate,” or “severe” marital stress. Respondents were followed up with for a full year after their heart attack, as stated in the press release. On a 12-point scale, those with “high stress levels” scored 1.6 points worse in physical wellbeing and 2.6 points poorer in mental health than those who had absent or mild stress rates. According to the findings, marital tension was also linked to post-heart-attack symptoms such as chest pain and hospital readmission within a year.
More than half as many people with “severe” stress levels as those without marital stress were readmitted to the hospital within 30 days after their initial discharge. Even after accounting for the participant’s age, color, ethnicity, and gender, the release claims that poorer health outcomes persisted. The statement noted that the correlation was weaker after adjusting for factors like work, education, income, and health insurance coverage, but that it was still statistically significant.
