Yale UniversityMoral support from family members and friends are said to be extremely important for one’s well-being, particularly heart patients. This is explained in the following news. A Yale University study believes that deprived social subsequent to heart attacks may add to deteriorating health and symptoms of depression, especially in women.

The study trailed around 2,411 heart attack survivors at roughly 19 centers in the US and gauged the intensity of social support they were given and their health status over the first year of recuperation.

The scientists inquired whether the subjects had someone present to listen, provide good advice, and deliver love and affection and other kinds of emotional support. Patients having less levels of support during recuperation seem to perform considerably poorer as compared to their counterparts who were given normal and all-inclusive support during recovery. Those with low support apparently suffered from an augmented danger of angina, more depressive symptoms, lower mental functioning and worse heart-related standard of life. This connection seemed to be noticeably more among female patients.

Senior author Judith H. Lichtman, Ph.D., associate professor in the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, commented, “This association was more pronounced in female patients. “We found that women with low social support were more likely than their peers to be single and have a history of smoking and high cholesterol. Our results demonstrate that low social support is linked to important outcomes for patients not only during the early recovery period, but throughout the first year after a heart attack.”

Lead author Erica Leifheit-Limson, a doctoral candidate in the Division of Chronic Disease Epidemiology, remarked, “Interventions that increase social support may represent effective, non-invasive opportunities to improve health outcomes within the first year of recovery, particularly for women. For survivors of heart attacks, we need to be concerned about aspects of their lives and recovery that are important to them beyond survival or having a recurrent heart attack.”

Cardiovascular disease is claimed to be the one of the reasons for death among American men and women. Former analysis had associated low social support with elevated hospitalization and death rates following heart attack. But its relationship with other results like symptoms of depression has apparently not been investigated so well.

The findings were published in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes.