The Effect of Anxiety and Depressive Symptoms on Quality of Life among Patients with Heart Failure: An integrative literature review

Abstract

Background: Anxiety and depressive symptoms interfere with physical and psychological status, worsening symptoms and quality of life (QoL) among patients with heart failure (HF). Objective: The purpose of this review was to explore the effect of anxiety and depressive symptoms on the QoL among patients with HF. Methods: The research strategy was done using the following search engines: PubMed, CINAHL, ProQuest, Science Direct, and Google Scholar. The key words used in this research included:  Heart failure, QoL, Anxiety & depression/ depressive symptoms, and the combination of these words. The research targeted articles in English language during the period from 2009 to 2020. The inclusion criteria included all study types. Results: The results of this search ended up with 150 articles. After reviewing the abstract of these articles, irrelevant articles were excluded. When the full text articles were reviewed, 129 articles were excluded ending with 21 articles which constitute the base of this literature review. Conclusion: Patients with HF usually suffer from poor QoL. Anxiety and depressive symptoms negatively affect the QoL for this population.