A Jordanian medical study said that the psychological pressures caused by the pandemic of corona may lead to a heart attack, indicating that the appearance of signs of anxiety, fear or loneliness on patients with heart disease or who have atherosclerotic risk factors must be taken seriously.
The study conducted by the Jordanian Heart Group for Research is the first in the world, and its results published yesterday by the International Journal of Cardiology because of its importance at the global level.
Dr. Ayman Hammouda, the main researcher in the group, said that the editorial board of the magazine, issued in the United States, decided to publish the Jordanian study without following the usual delay in publishing the studies, which may take a few months, given its importance and the need to inform doctors and those interested in it around the world. The goal is to protect people, and because some countries are still under embargo, or they are returning to imposing it again.
He added that the Corona pandemic (Covid-19) caused huge human losses worldwide, noting that the most important step taken by most of the governments of the six continents to control the spread of the disease, was the imposition of a ban, stone, isolation and stopping the movement of global transportation.
Hammouda stressed that the countries that adopted these steps early - such as Jordan - were able to restrain this pandemic to a large extent, which made it distinguished from many other countries.
And he showed that, despite the urgent need to ban, quarantine, isolate and stop the movement of transportation, it formed some source of psychological pressure, including anxiety, fear, unity, and sleep disturbance, in addition to financial and economic pressures from the loss of a job or a decrease in financial income.
Hammouda pointed out that the study conducted by the heart group showed that some people's intolerance to psychological and economic pressures may lead to acute heart attack.
He confirmed that the spread of Corona disease in the world led to a flood of thousands of clinical and laboratory studies on the disease published in dozens of medical journals.
Some of those studies indicated that a number of corona patients suffer from cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack, heart muscle decline and sudden death. As for people who are not infected with the virus and who are under quarantine or ban, published studies have limited to describing the impact of psychological and economic stresses on the individual's job performance and their sleep disorder. However, attention to the effect of these pressures on causing heart attack was not previously published and only the Jordanian Cardiologists' group is subjected to research.
Dr. Hammouda said that the group conducted the study on 55 persons without coronavirus who were hospitalized due to acute heart attack under the effects of anxiety, fear, loneliness, loss of financial income, job and other stimuli.
The researchers found - according to the main researcher in the study, Dr. Hammouda - that the majority of these people were those who had risk factors for atherosclerosis, such as smoking, diabetes, pressure, and cholesterol, or who had previously had cardiovascular disease.
The importance of the study lies in the fact that it is the only one in the world that addresses this issue. It will also draw the attention of cardiologists around the world to study this phenomenon, which can be avoided in some individuals who are ready for heart injuries.