Arq. Bras. Cardiol. 2023; 120(10): e20230713
Stress Reduction, Meditation and Mindfulness Program for Heart Failure Patients: Some Light in the Darkness
This Short Editorial is referred by the Research article "Impact of a Stress Reduction, Meditation, and Mindfulness Program in Patients with Chronic Heart Failure: A Randomized Controlled Trial".
The study entitled “Impact of a Stress Reduction, Meditation, and Mindfulness Program in Patients with Chronic Heart Failure: A Randomized Controlled Trial” has raised a very important subject to be addressed in patients with heart failure and aimed to do so by conducting a randomized clinical trial. The impact of patients’ stress, depression, lack of life purpose, and psychological changes imposed by a chronic and debilitating disease definitely contributes to worsening quality of life and possibly to worse prognosis., To assess this impact and to research possible therapies is deeply needed. The authors should be recognized for their interest and huge effort in conducting such a laborious trial.
The study, however, has some deficiencies. Although the authors claim to be a heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) trial, the study included approximately half of the patients with HFrEF. Despite the heterogeneity of the sample, one-third of patients in the intervention group were lost to follow-up, while no patients were lost in the control group. Therefore, even having screened more than two hundred individuals, only 13 patients were actually submitted to intervention. The authors do not inform us of how these patients were pharmacologically treated, but given that the study was conducted four years ago, one can assume patients’ treatment was outdated.
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