ReviewCurrent cardiology reports2019
Sense of Purpose in Life and Cardiovascular Disease: Underlying Mechanisms and Future Directions.
Review in Current cardiology reports, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 136 citations in OpenAlex.
- Purpose in life and mortality: A meta-analysis of the published literature and individual-participant data of 488,765 participants followed for up to 32 years.Psychological medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Purpose in life and c-reactive protein: An individual-participant meta-analysis of >50,000 adults.Psychoneuroendocrinology · 2025Pooled it
- Purpose in life and grip strength: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 115,972 participants from 24 countries across four continents.GeroScience · 2025Pooled it
- Purpose in life and slow walking speed: cross-sectional and longitudinal associations.GeroScience · 2024Pooled it
- Purpose in life and stress: An individual-participant meta-analysis of 16 samples.Journal of affective disorders · 2024Pooled it
- The impact of gratitude interventions on patients with cardiovascular disease: a systematic review.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Pooled it
- What matters to cardiac patients? The impact of linking life goals to health goals on patients' intention-to-change-lifestyle: an online experiment.British journal of health psychology · 2026Trial
- Momentary associations between purpose in life and social connection from a micro-longitudinal study of everyday life.Acta psychologica · 2026Article
- The Hungarian adaptation of the work-related Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT).BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Momentary and lagged associations between purpose in life and pain intensity in daily life.Journal of health psychology · 2026Article
- Discordance in gender role attitudes between spouses and its relationship with the risk biomarkers of cardiovascular diseases: a couple-level analysis.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Meaning in life and Parkinson's disease: Evidence from a 17-year study across 14 countries.Archives of gerontology and geriatrics · 2026Article
- Volunteering and Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes in Black Adolescents From Low-Income Families.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Purpose in life and coping strategies: Main associations and moderation by concurrent distress.PloS one · 2026Article
- Posttraumatic growth theory as a framework for heart failure self-care intervention design.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Article
- Maintaining cognitive and physical health across the adult lifespan: the contribution of psychosocial factors.Journal of behavioral medicine · 2025Article
- Meaning of life and stress-coping strategies for broken heart syndrome patients.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Novel neurotherapeutic targets for substance use disorders: Neuroplasticity, neuroinflammation, gasotransmitters and non-canonical organ systems.Neurotherapeutics : the journal of the American Society for Experimental NeuroTherapeutics · 2025Review
- Illness Expectations and Asthma Symptoms: A 6-Month Longitudinal Study.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2025Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
purpose of reviewIn this review, we synthesize recent research that has reported associations of a higher sense of purpose in life with reduced risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD), and then explore mechanisms that might underlie these associations. RECENT
findingsAccumulating observational and experimental evidence suggests that having a higher sense of purpose might influence CVD risk through three pathways: (1) enhancement of other psychological and social resources that buffer against the cardiotoxic effects of overwhelming stress; (2) indirect effects through health behaviors; and (3) direct effects on biological pathways. A sense of purpose in life is emerging as an independent risk factor for incident CVD. A key remaining question is whether purpose causally effects CVD risk; in the "Future Research Directions" section, we focus on work needed to establish causality and provide suggestions for next steps.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.