ArticleEuropean heart journal2021
Death of a child and the risk of atrial fibrillation: a nationwide cohort study in Sweden.
Article in European heart journal, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Grief-Related Chest Pain: A Review, Conceptual Analysis, and Integrative Model.Psychophysiology · 2026Pooled it
- 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
- Neuroticism and the Risk of Atrial Fibrillation: An Observational Epidemiologic and Mendelian Randomization Study.JACC. Asia · 2024Article
- Sibling Death in Childhood and Early Adulthood and Risk of Early-Onset Cardiovascular Disease.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- The importance, consequences and treatment of psychosocial risk factors in heart disease: less conversation, more action!Netherlands heart journal : monthly journal of the Netherlands Society of Cardiology and the Netherlands Heart Foundation · 2024Review
- Childhood maltreatment, genetic risk, and subsequent risk of arrhythmias: a prospective cohort study.European journal of psychotraumatology · 2024Article
- Risk of cardiovascular disease among parents of children diagnosed with cancer: a population-based study from Denmark and Sweden.Cancer communications (London, England) · 2023Article
- 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
- The role of genetic predisposition in cardiovascular risk after cancer diagnosis: a matched cohort study of the UK Biobank.British journal of cancer · 2022Article
- Bereavement and Prognosis After a First Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Swedish Register-Based Cohort Study.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2022Article
- The year in cardiovascular medicine 2021: arrhythmias.European heart journal · 2022Article
- Death of an offspring and parental risk of ischemic heart diseases: A population-based cohort study.PLoS medicine · 2021Article
- Old and new enemies: psychological stress, occupational stress, COVID-19, and a glimpse of the future.European heart journal · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aimsThe role of psychological stress in the aetiology of atrial fibrillation (AF) is unclear. The death of a child is one of the most severe sources of stress. We aimed to investigate whether the death of a child is associated with an increased risk of AF. METHODS AND
resultsWe studied parents with children born during 1973-2014 included the Swedish Medical Birth Register (n = 3 924 237). Information on death of a child, AF and socioeconomic, lifestyle and health-related covariates was obtained through linkage to nationwide population and health registers. We examined the link between death of a child and AF risk using Poisson regression. Parents who lost a child had a 15% higher risk of AF than unexposed parents [incidence rate ratio (IRR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI): 1.15 (1.10-1.20)]. An increased risk of AF was observed not only if the child died due to cardiovascular causes [IRR (95% CI): 1.35 (1.17-1.56)], but also in case of deaths due to other natural [IRR (95% CI): 1.15 (1.09-1.21)] or unnatural [IRR (95% CI): 1.10 (1.02-1.19)] causes. The risk of AF was highest in the 1st week after the loss [IRR (95% CI): 2.87 (1.44-5.75)] and remained 10-40% elevated on the long term.
conclusionsDeath of a child was associated with a modestly increased risk of AF. Our finding that an increased risk was observed also after loss of a child due to unnatural deaths suggests that stress-related mechanisms may also be implicated in the development of AF.
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