Investigating the relevance of precordial pain and anguish for mental health

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Over the last few decades, conceptual confusions have been observed in the context of approaching the concepts of fear, panic, anxiety and anguish. Anguish, which focuses on present events, is accompanied by a feeling of tightness or pain in the thoracic region and, because many patients with affective and anxious disorders report this experience, the feeling of anguish has thus become the target of great concern. clinic. OBJECTIVES: Investigate whether anguish is more related to depression or to anxiety, and identify which variables or symptoms with more prediction to the state of anguish. METHOD: This investigation consisted of an exploratory study where the prevalence of anxiety in psychiatric patients and the discrimination of clinical differences were investigated. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION: The investigation concluded that anguish is slightly more associated with depression than anxiety, being more frequent in females, and that the most frequent comorbidities among patients with anguish are somatization, fears, depressive mood, gastrointestinal and neurovegetative symptoms. CONCLUSION: The variables with most relationships with anguish were gender, reduced HAM-A score, BSI somatization, BSI hostility, BSI obsession compulsion, age and MINI depression. Anguish is more near to Depression than to anxiety.