Development of a positive psychology intervention for patients with acute cardiovascular disease
Abstract
Overview
The management of depression and other
negative psychological states in cardiac
patients has been a focus of multiple treatment
trials, though such trials have not led to
substantial improvements in cardiac outcomes.
In contrast, there has been minimal
focus on interventions to increase positive
psychological states in cardiac patients,
despite the fact that optimism and other positive
states have been associated with superior
cardiovascular outcomes. Our objective was to
develop an 8-week, phone-based positive psychology
intervention for patients hospitalized
with acute cardiac disease (acute coronary
syndrome or decompensated heart failure).
Such an intervention would consist of positive
psychology exercises adapted for this specific
population, and it would need to be feasible for
practitioners and patients in real-world settings.
By adapting exercises that were previously
validated in healthy individuals, we were
able to generate a positive psychology
telemedicine intervention for cardiac patients
that focused on optimism, kindness, and gratitude.
In addition, we successfully created a
companion treatment manual for subjects to
enhance the educational aspects of the intervention
and facilitate completion of exercises.
Finally, we successfully performed a small pilot
trial of this intervention, and found that the
positive psychology intervention appeared to
be feasible and well-accepted in a cohort of
patients with acute cardiac illness. Future
studies should further develop this promising
intervention and examine its impact on psychological
and medical outcomes in this vulnerable
population of cardiac patients.
Keywords
Positive psychology, optimism, cardiovascular disease, acute coronary syndrome, congestive heart failure
Article Information
Correspondence
Jeff C. Huffman, Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street/Blake 11, Boston, MA, USA. Tel. +1.617.724-2910 – Fax: +1.617.724-9155. E-mail: jhuffman@partners.org
Acknowledgements
This work was supported in
part by grant R01-DP00336 from the United
States Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to
Dr. Herbert Benson. The authors have no conflicts
of interest to report and there were no other
funding sources.
Received
2011-06-25T00:00:00
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