Death of a family member may increase heart failure mortality risk

Heart failure patients experiencing grief or in mourning following the loss of a close family member are at an increased risk of death, particularly during the first week following the family member's death, according to a study published today in JACC: Heart Failure.

Many studies have also been conducted to confirm the relationship between severe emotional stress and Takotsubo cardiomyopathy, also known as "broken heart syndrome." This study is one of the first to investigate the association between bereavement and Heart failure risk.

The study authors looked at almost 500,000 patients from the Swedish Heart Failure Registry during 2000-2018 and/or patients with a primary diagnosis of heart failure from the Swedish Patient Register during 1987-2018. Information on date and cause of family member deaths (children, spouse/partner, grandchildren, siblings and parents) was obtained from the Cause of Death Register.

A total of 58,949 study participants experienced bereavement during the mean 3.7 years of follow-up. The association between bereavement and increased HF mortality risk was observed after death of a child (a 10% increased risk), spouse/partner (a 20% increased risk), grandchild (a 5% increased risk) or sibling (a 13% increased risk), but not after death of a parent.