Psychosomatics
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Pulmonary hypertension is a highly disabling condition characterized by a progressive increase in pulmonary arterial pressure. Even though pulmonary hypertension may cause great emotional distress, research examining the determinants of patients' emotional well-being has been scarce and has mostly focused on the role of disease-related factors. ⋯ Patients with considerably different levels of disease severity may develop clinically-significant depressive and anxiety symptomatology. This suggests that there is not a perfect correspondence between the level of disease severity and the repercussions thereof across patients. Accordingly, these results suggest that emotional well-being may be better explained by taking into consideration patients' life circumstances, as these may modulate the repercussions of having pulmonary hypertension. The results also showed that anxiety symptoms constituted an extra burden to patients' QoL. The higher prevalence in this sample of clinically-significant symptoms of anxiety, compared to that of depression, suggest that feelings of fear and uncertainty may require special attention among patients with pulmonary hypertension.