Psychological distress and self-care engagement: healing after a cardiac intervention

Silencing the self, a relational concept, occurs when individuals overvalue others' standards, self-sacrifice their needs for others, inhibit self-expression, and experience a sense of dividedness between their inner and outer self. Given the emerging literature highlighting the importance of relational beliefs and experiences in coronary heart disease, the contribution of a concept such as self-silencing to the cardiac healing process is valuable to consider. This study investigated self-silencing dimensions, psychological distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms), and self-care engagement after a serious cardiac event. Forty women and 80 men attending a rehabilitation program completed a series of questionnaires six months post-cardiac intervention. Multivariate regression analyses were performed to examine the role of self-silencing after the influence of cardiac health and sociodemographics were taken into account. Self-silencing was positively associated with anxiety and depressive symptoms for both sexes. For self-care engagement, sex interacted with some of the silencing dimensions. The findings were interpreted in the context of participants' attendance in a rehabilitation program. Women who are self-silencing may benefit from the self-care expectations associated with a cardiac program whereas for men, even engaging in cardiac self-care may be perceived as self-silencing.