IMPACT OF PSYCHOSOCIAL FACTORS ON VENTRICULAR ARRHYTHMIAS AND SUDDEN

Several studies provide convincing evi-dence that psychosocial factors contribute significantly to the genesis of malignant ventricular arrhythmias and sudden death. Recent prospective epidemiological and clin-ical studies, supported by experimental stud-ies, suggested a link between factors such as anger, anxiety, depression, hostility, social supports and work characteristics and ven-tricular arrhythmias, cardiac autonomic ner-vous function and sudden death. The num-ber of physicians providing cardiologic care who think about psychologic issues on an everyday basis is very low. Given the pub-lic health and clinical importance of th