Researcher's cardiac studyÂ

A RESEARCHER has found heart attack patients can suffer severe emotional trauma after medics return them to physical health.

According to University of Portsmouth PhD student Samantha Meredith the feelings range from a phobia of moving in case a patient's heart rate rises to accepting they have a health condition at all. 

In carrying out the year-long ethnographical study, Samantha discovered the trauma to be most common in men who saw themselves as '˜alpha males' before becoming patients. 

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But afterwards, many perceived themselves to be weak and more likely to be '˜picked off' by other people. 

Published in Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, the study examined cardiac patients navigating shock and grief, including depression, feelings of loss of control and a disruption to their understanding of who they thought they were.

It concluded cardiac patients need kindness as much as they need medical intervention to recover and presented its findings as three fictional stories based on the most common types of emotional trauma seen in cardiac patients over a year.

Samantha hopes the research results will help support patients, their families and clinicians. 

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