The Effect of Palliative Care on Improvement of Depression and Anxiety in Patients with Advanced Heart Failure

Background and Objective: Heart failure is a chronic disease and is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality. It hurts the quality of life. Patients livingwith heart failure experience important symptoms including anxiety and depression. These end-stage patients may benefit from palliative care. It focuses on symptomalleviation, patient function, and quality of life. In patients with heart failure, depression and anxiety are common and connected with poor quality of life, morefrequent hospitalizations, and higher mortality. The role of palliative care in the treatment of patients with symptomatic heart failure (HF) is poorly studied. Theobjective of this study is to investigate the effect of palliative care on improvement of depression and anxiety in patients with advanced heart failure. Search Method: A literature search from 2000 to 2019 was conducted using multiple databases (PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) and using key words of palliative care; depression; anxiety; heart failure to identify related studies regarding the research question. Findings: Totally 16 studies included in this review. According to the results of thereviewed articles, the healthcare providers who care of patients with advanced heart failure should be educated about the impact of palliative care on psychological healthof mentioned patients. Furthermore, palliative care that target both physical and psychological symptom reduction should be combined with medical management in amultidisciplinary approach. Also, the role of spiritual care in enhancement of patients’ sense of spiritual well-being and reduction of depression and anxiety was highlightedin several studies. Conclusion: The results indicate that palliative care is associated with improvement of depression and anxiety in patients with advanced heart failure and reaching this goal required multidisciplinary and integrated medical and palliative care.

Keywords:

palliative care , depression , anxiety , heart failure