Determination of frequency and intensity of psychical disorders in patients with chest pain with non-cardiac origin referred to cardiovascular clinics (2004-2005)

Introduction: One of the most frequent causes of going to cardiovascular clinics is chest pain. The origin of chest pain can be cardiac or non-cardiac. Non-cardiac chest pain may be due to corporeal such as (esophageal, respiratory, arthritis). With regard to this point, psychical causes can be generated and also make intense in cardiac diseases. Therefore, more attention should be paid to theses psychical causes. This study was planed to determine the prevalence of psychical disorders such as obsession, violence, anxiety, depression, paranoid, phobia, somatization, and psychosis and chest pain. Materials and Methods: This descriptive and cross sectional study was carried out on 400 patients with chest pain referred to Semnan Fatemieh hospital. These patients did not have cardiovascular diseases and related test and exercise test were negative. Data from these patients were collected by questionaire. Results: Fifty three percentages of patients were men and 47 % were women. The most prevalence psychical disorder in this study was depression with %66.2 and the least one was psychosis with 16%. Depression intensity in 72.9% of patients was light. Moderate and vigorous intensities in patients were 26.1% and 1.1%, respectively. The percentages of anxiety and obsession with different level intensities (light, moderate and vigorous ) were 83.8%, 16.2%, 0% and 78.8%, 18.1%, 2.9%, respectively. Conclusion: In this study, depression and agitation were the most common of psychical disorder agents in patients with chest pain with non-cardiac origin. This fact showed a similarity with other studies, while agitation was the most common agent of the chest pain in some studies. It seems this difference arising from cultural diversity of patients. The most prevalence of psychical disorders in men and women (mid ages) were 47.18% and 47.8% respectively.