ArticleOpen heart
Long-term risk of atrial fibrillation after the death of a partner.
Article in Open heart. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Grief-Related Chest Pain: A Review, Conceptual Analysis, and Integrative Model.Psychophysiology · 2026Pooled it
- Psychological aspects of atrial fibrillation: A systematic narrative review : Impact on incidence, cognition, prognosis, and symptom perception.Current cardiology reports · 2020Pooled it
- Partner bereavement and risk of psoriasis and atopic eczema: cohort studies in the U.K. and Denmark.The British journal of dermatology · 2020Pooled it
- Relationship between psychological factors and atrial fibrillation: A meta-analysis and systematic review.Medicine · 2020Pooled it
- Mental Health Across the Atrial Fibrillation Continuum: Mechanisms, Outcomes, and Clinical Implications.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Cross-national associations between adulthood stressful life events and incident heart disease: a multicohort harmonized analysis.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2026Article
- Life course adversity and risk of incident atrial fibrillation: causal mediation analysis of psychological distress in the population-based Tromsø Study.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- The Association of Perceived Stress and Atrial Fibrillation.Research in heart yield and translational medicine · 2025Article
- Loss of a child and the risk of atrial fibrillation: a Danish population-based prospective cohort study.Journal of epidemiology and community health · 2023Article
- Bereavement in childhood and young adulthood and the risk of atrial fibrillation: a population-based cohort study from Denmark and Sweden.BMC medicine · 2023Article
- Bereavement and Prognosis After a First Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Swedish Register-Based Cohort Study.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2022Article
- Death of a Parent and the Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease and Stroke in Denmark and Sweden.JAMA network open · 2022Article
- Death of an offspring and parental risk of ischemic heart diseases: A population-based cohort study.PLoS medicine · 2021Article
- Death of a child and the risk of atrial fibrillation: a nationwide cohort study in Sweden.European heart journal · 2021Article
- Depression and coronary heart disease: 2018 position paper of the ESC working group on coronary pathophysiology and microcirculation.European heart journal · 2020Article
- Heart failure in immigrant groups: a cohort study of adults aged 45 years and over in Sweden.Scandinavian cardiovascular journal : SCJ · 2018Article
- Atrial fibrillation in immigrant groups: a cohort study of all adults 45 years of age and older in Sweden.European journal of epidemiology · 2017Article
- Article
- Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy after Spinal Anesthesia for a Minimally Invasive Urologic Procedure.Case reports in anesthesiology · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesSevere psychological stress is generally associated with an increased risk of acute cardiovascular diseases, such as myocardial infarction, but it remains unknown whether it also applies to atrial fibrillation. We conducted a population-based case-control study using nationwide Danish health registers to examine the risk of atrial fibrillation after the death of a partner.
methodsFrom 1995 through 2014, we identified 88 612 cases with a hospital diagnosis of atrial fibrillation and 886 120 age-matched and sex-matched controls based on risk-set sampling. The conditional logistic regression model was used to calculate adjusted ORs of atrial fibrillation with 95% CIs.
resultsPartner bereavement was experienced by 17 478 cases and 168 940 controls and was associated with a transiently higher risk of atrial fibrillation; the risk was highest 8-14 days after the loss (1.90; 95% CI 1.34 to 2.69), after which it gradually declined. One year after the loss, the risk was almost the same as in the non-bereaved population. Overall, the OR of atrial fibrillation within 30 days after bereavement was 1.41 (95% CI 1.17 to 1.70), but it tended to be higher in persons below the age of 60 years (2.34; 95% CI 1.02 to 5.40) and in persons whose partner had a low predicted mortality 1 month before the death, that is, ≤5 points on the age-adjusted Charlson Comorbidity Index (1.57; 95% CI 1.13 to 2.17).
conclusionsThe severely stressful life event of losing a partner was followed by a transiently increased risk of atrial fibrillation lasting for 1 year, especially for the least predicted losses.
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