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 Young heart attack patients tend to have better physical and mental
health afterward if they have close friends and family who care
about them, the study found.
The finding may eventually help doctors and other healthcare workers
identify young people who may benefit from additional social support
after a heart attack, the researchers write in the Journal of the
American Heart Association.
“Things like love and friendship make a big difference in the
recovery of heart attacks,” said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, the study’s
senior author from the Yale University School of Medicine in New
Haven, Connecticut.
“The traditional focus on pills and procedures should be accompanied
by special attention to the individual,” he added.
For the new research, the researchers used data from a study of
3,432 young Spanish and American heart attack patients who were
asked about their social support. The participants were between ages
18 and 55 years.
The research was focused on young women, who traditionally have
worse outcomes compared to their male counterparts after heart
attacks. Perhaps social support played a role in the difference,
Krumholz told Reuters Health.
Overall, 21 percent of the participants were considered to have low
social support, based on questions that asked whether the person had
someone who listens and cares for them, offers advice, loves them
and offers emotional support.
The amount of social support was evenly distributed between men and
women, the researchers found.
At the first evaluation, the researchers found the people with low
social support were more likely to be single, unemployed, live
alone, and smoke and drink excessively. They were also more likely
to have risk factors for heart disease, including high blood
pressure and diabetes.
A year later, the people with low social support had lower mental
functioning, lower quality of life and higher depression scores than
those with some or a lot of social support.
The size of the effect was similar in men and women. “We failed to
find a difference,” Krumholz said.
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Overall, the effect from low social support was small, but Krumholz
said even small differences are important.
“I wouldn’t dismiss the importance of this,” he said. “I think for
some people it can be very important. By itself, it’s modest, but so
are most things we do in the recovery period. Why not try and line
it all together?”
The researchers can’t say how social support affects recovery,
however.
It could be that social support instills a feeling that encourages
heart patients to do better, for example. But it can also be that
people with more social support are in better health and have
someone to take care of them during recovery.
“It would be great to understand this better, but since there are
little side effects to love and friendship, I think we should be
encouraging people to pay attention to the people around them,”
Krumholz said. "There is a strong possibility that these things play
a role in recovery."
Dr. Leslie Cho, director of the Cleveland Clinic’s Women’s
Cardiovascular Center in Ohio, said it's also important for
healthcare providers to pay attention to their patients' social
support systems.
"It’s not all on patients to seek their own help and find their own
support group," she said. "I think it’s part of good comprehensive
medical care."
People may be able to use cardiac rehab programs that work with
patients after a heart attack or similar event as a support group,
said Cho, who was not involved with the new study.
Additionally, she said to check at local American Heart Association
offices for information on support groups.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/1xLiBCp Journal of the American Heart
Association, online September 30, 2014.
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