Iilness perception in cardiac patients: a systematic review

• Main Authors: Elisa Kern de Castro, Viviane Altenhofen, Natália Britz de Lima
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidade Estadual de Londrina 2016-10-01
• Series: Estudos Interdisciplinares em Psicologia
• Subjects: Doença cardíaca; Percepção da doença; Representação da doença; Crenças.
• Online Access: http://www.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/eip/article/view/23821

This systematic review of literature aimed to investigate articles published between 2009 and 2015 about illness perception in cardiac patients, based on the Common Sense Model (CSM). Searches were performed at the databases PsycInfo, Medline e PubMed. The descriptors used were cardiac disease, illness perception, illness representation and illness beliefs. The results showed that cardiac disease is associated to serious consequences to patient’s life, with causes attributed to factors regardless of the individual’s behavior (psychological causes, hereditary, virus, bad luck, etc.). Furthermore, cardiac patients tend to believe more in treatment to control than in personal control.