Association between psychological complaints and recurrence of vasovagal syncope

Vasovagal syncope (VVS), the most common cause of transient loss of consciousness (T-LOC), is often accompanied by higher levels of psychological distress. We investigated to what extent psychological complaints interact with the effects of non-pharmacological treatment in patients with frequently recurring VVS.

Patients with ≥3 episodes of VVS in the 2 years prior to the start of the study openly received non-pharmacological treatment. Before treatment initiation, we determined the level of general psychological complaints by the Symptom Checklist 90-R (SCL-90-R) questionnaire. We regularly evaluated syncopal recurrence during follow-up. We compared the SCL-90-R scores of VVS patients in our study with the corresponding scores of healthy Dutch subjects (reference population). We examined whether patients with more recurrences during follow-up had higher SCL-90-R scores at baseline and whether this association changed when adjusting for other factors associated with recurrence using logistic regression.

Total SCL-90-R scores were higher in our cohort of patients with frequent episodes of VVS than in the reference population (142 vs. 118; p < 0.001). During the first 6 months of treatment, 42% of patients experienced syncopal recurrence(s). The SCL-90-R scores of these patients were significantly higher compared with patients without syncopal recurrence in this period (160 vs. 130; p = 0.01). After adjusting for other predictors of recurrence, especially the number of episodes before inclusion, the association between SCL-90-R scores and recurrence remained intact.

Levels of general psychological complaints are higher in patients with syncopal recurrence during non-pharmacological treatment of VVS, even after adjusting for previous syncopal episodes.