Archives of general psychiatry
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Arch. Gen. Psychiatry · Nov 2008
Posttraumatic stress symptoms and predicted mortality in patients with implantable cardioverter-defibrillators: results from the prospective living with an implanted cardioverter-defibrillator study.
Cardiac disease and treatment with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) may be psychologically traumatic. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is generally overlooked in cardiac patients, and no study to date (to our knowledge) has evaluated the effect of PTSD symptoms on the prognosis in patients with ICDs. ⋯ The adverse effect of PTSD symptoms on the long-term mortality risk in ICD-treated cardiac event survivors, independent of disease severity, supports the need for routinely applied interdisciplinary psychosocial aftercare.
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Arch. Gen. Psychiatry · Nov 2008
Association of major depressive disorder with altered functional brain response during anticipation and processing of heat pain.
Chronic pain and depression are highly comorbid conditions, yet little is known about the neurobiological basis of pain processing in major depressive disorder (MDD). ⋯ These findings suggest that increased emotional reactivity during the anticipation of heat pain may lead to an impaired ability to modulate pain experience in MDD. Future studies should examine the degree to which altered functional brain response during anticipatory processing affects the ability to modulate negative affective states in MDD, which is a core characteristic of this disorder.