Psychological factors of adherence to treatment in patients with cardiovascular diseases

Introduction Cardiovascular diseases are one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Adherence to treatment is considered to be a key determinant of the effectiveness of therapy. Patient’s personality and other psychological characteristics play a regulating role in health behaviour but there is still no consistent evidence on their connection to the adherence to treatment. Objectives The study aimed to determine the role of psychological factors regarding the adherence to treatment in patients with cardiovascular diseases. Methods Adherence was measured using the Questionnaire for Comprehensive Assessment of Treatment Adherence (Nikolayev et al . Clinical Pharmacology and Therapy 2018, 1 74-78). To provide a complex assessment of psychological factors we used the Short Health Anxiety Inventory (Salkovskis et al . Psychological Medicine 2002, 32 843-853; Pervichko, Shishkova. National Psychological Journal 2022, 2), the HEXACO Personality Inventory (Ashton, Lee. Personality and Social Psychology Review 2007, 11 150-166; Egorova et al . Issues of Psychology 2019, 5 33-49), the Defense Mechanisms Rating Scales (DMRS-SR-30; Di Giuseppe et al . Front. Psychiatry 2020, 11:870), and the Picture Frustration Test (Rosenzweig. Journal of Personality 1945, 14 3-23). The study was conducted from January 2024 to April 2024. The sample consisted of 42 male patients hospitalised with multiple cardiac pathology, whose average age was 49.40±7.71. Results Patients with cardiovascular diseases mostly demonstrated middle level of the adherence to treatment (61.17±18.53%), twelve (30%) participants were defined as low-adherent, nine (22.5%) were high-adherent. The component of health anxiety known as vigilance to bodily sensations was found to be positively associated with the adherence to treatment (r=0.316, p=0.047). Conscientiousness was the only personality trait to demonstrate significant positive associations with the adherence (r=0.378, p=0.023). More interestingly, adherence to treatment appears to be positively associated with need-persistent and intropunitive frustration reactions (r=0.428, p=0.013; r=0.459, p=0.007) and negatively associated with extrapunitive frustration reactions (r=-0.409, p=0.004). Assessment of defense mechanisms reveals positive associations between overall defense maturity and adherence to treatment (r=0.388, p=0.021), indicating that low-adherent patients are more inclined to use less mature defenses. Conclusions Thus, adherence to treatment in patients with cardiovascular diseases is associated with greater vigilance to bodily sensations, conscientiousness, defense maturity, use of need-persistent and intropunitive frustration reactions and lesser use of extrapunitive frustration reactions. Disclosure of Interest None Declared