The influence of illness perception on anxiety among hypertensive patients: a 5 years follow-up in Selected Abstracts from XXXV National Congress of the Italian Society of Hypertension (SIIA), Rome, 27–29 September 2018

INTRODUCTION: Anxiety is a well-known risk factor in the genesis and evolution of hypertension (HT) and cardiovascular diseases, as well as a key factor in the development of illness perception. Illness perception consists in the way the patient thinks about his/her condition and it is defined by the set of the conceived disease representations. Besides this kind of studies, little is known about the influence of illness perception on anxiety levels among hypertensive patients. AIM: To evaluate if illness perception dimensions and their variations over time could predict anxiety. METHODS: A total of 345 (mean age 55.40 ± 11.2 years old) outpatients followed by the Hypertension Unit of S. Gerardo Hospital (Monza, Italy) affected by essential hypertension were recruited and assessed at the baseline and a total of 249 at a 5-years follow-up. Patients were asked to complete a battery of psychological questionnaires under the guidance of a psychologist; moreover, anamnestic and clinical data were evaluated. The associations between illness perception domains, their variations over time, cardiovascular risk factors and anxiety were explored using multivariate hierarchical regression analyses. RESULTS: The results from hierarchical regression showed that the identity (b = 0.144, p\.05) and the variation over time of the HT consequences (b = 0.179, p\.05), of the treatment control (b = - 0.174, p\.05) and of the disease identity (b = 0.117, p\.05) were significantly and independently associated with anxiety at the follow-up. Furthermore, consequences (b = 0.152, p = .08) and the variation of the timeline (b = 0.157, p\.08) showed a trend that approached significance. These associations with anxiety were independent of cardiovascular risk factors and of the time elapsed since the HT diagnosis. CONCLUSIONS: Current findings shed light to the reciprocal relationships among anxiety and illness perception. They may contribute to the development of interventions, targeted on specific domains of illness perception, against the risk of anxiety disorders in HT patients.