Heart-Focused Anxiety: An Evolutionary Concept Analysis : Advances in Nursing Science

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Heart-Focused Anxiety

An Evolutionary Concept Analysis

Barthle, Pamela MSN, RN, APRN-CNP

Author Information

School of Nursing & Health Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City.

Correspondence: Pamela Barthle, MSN, RN, APRN-CNP, School of Nursing & Health Studies, University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2464 Charlotte St, Kansas City, MO 64108 ([email protected]).

I acknowledge Dr Amanda Emerson and Dr Cynthia Lippincott for their expertise in reviewing the final drafts of my manuscript.

The author has disclosed that she has no significant relationships with, or financial interest in, any commercial companies pertaining to this article.

Supplemental digital content is available for this article. Direct URL citations appear in the printed text and are provided in the HTML and PDF versions of this article on the journal's Web site (www.advancesinnursingsciencew.com).

Advances in Nursing Science 45(1):p 69-85, January/March 2022. | DOI: 10.1097/ANS.0000000000000383

Abstract

Although heart-focused anxiety is a common experience of patients following a myocardial infarction, it is one rarely addressed in nursing research. I used Rodger's evolutionary method of concept analysis to review uses of heart-focused anxiety in literature from several disciplines including nursing and synthesized a definition to guide future research. Heart-focused anxiety is an experience of avoidance, fear, and heart-focused attention that follows from cardiac diagnoses, somatic symptoms, and familial factors and results in adverse health outcomes, reassurance seeking, disruption of life, and recurrent chest pain. Although heart-focused anxiety is an evolving concept, the updated definition should help provide a foundation for future research. A Supplemental Digital Content video abstract is available at https://links.lww.com/ANS/A32.

© 2021 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

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