Preprocedural Anxiety in Adults With Congenital Heart Disease: The PANIC Study

Preprocedural anxiety may have detrimental effects both cognitively and physiologically.

The objective of this study was to determine the association between state (situational) and trait (persistent in everyday life) anxiety and differences between the adult congenital heart disease (ACHD) and acquired heart disease populations.

The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and financial stress scale were administered to adults with acquired and CHD at 4 tertiary referral centers in the United States prior to cardiac catheterization. Student's t-test and least absolute shrinkage and selection operator regression analyses were used to assess differences in anxiety between groups and identify the optimal model of predictors of anxiety.

Of the 291 patients enrolled, those with CHD (n = 91) were younger (age 41.3 ± 16.3 years vs 64.7 ± 11.3 years, P < 0.001), underwent more cardiac surgeries (P < 0.001), and had higher levels of trait anxiety (t[171] = 2.62, P = 0.001, d = 0.33). There was no difference in state anxiety between groups (t[158.65] = 1.37, P = 0.17, d = 0.18). State anxiety was singularly associated with trait anxiety. Trait anxiety was negatively associated with age and positively associated with state anxiety and financial stress. Patients with CHD of great complexity were more trait (F[2,88] = 4.21, P = 0.02) and state anxious (F[2,87] = 4.59, P = 0.01), though with relatively small effect size.

Trait anxiety levels are higher in the ACHD population and directly associated with state anxiety. Specialists caring for ACHD patients should not only recognize the frequency of trait anxiety but also high-risk subgroups that may benefit from psychological or social interventions to reduce preprocedural anxiety.