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Somatic symptom disorder in patients with myocardial bridge: cross-sectional study in China

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2025

Zhengyu Tao
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Yani Wu
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Yongxia Qiao
Affiliation:
School of Public Health, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Zi Wang
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Yezi Chai
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Qizhen Wu
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Yinan Wang
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Xinning Guo
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Chen Wu
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Jialiang Mao
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Meng Jiang*
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
Jun Pu
Affiliation:
Division of Cardiology, State Key Laboratory of Systems Medicine for Cancer, Renji Hospital, School of Medicine, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
*
Correspondence: Meng Jiang. Email: jiangmeng0919@163.com
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Abstract

Background

Myocardial bridge contributes to chest pain, often accompanied by non-specific complaints.

Aims

Our study aims to determine somatic symptom disorder (SSD) prevalence in patients with myocardial bridge, investigating associated clinical and psychological features.

Method

In this prospective cross-sectional study, we enrolled 1357 participants (337 with and 1020 without myocardial bridge) from Shanghai Renji Hospital. The Somatic Symptom Scale-China questionnaire was used to assess SSD. Depressive and anxiety disorders were assessed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7).

Results

The prevalence of SSD in the myocardial bridge group was 63.2%, higher than the group without myocardial bridge (53.8%). Patients with myocardial bridge were at an increased risk of SSD (odds ratio 1.362, 95% CI 1.026–1.809; P = 0.033). There were no differences in the mean PHQ-9 scores (3.2 ± 3.4 v. 3.2 ± 4.1; P = 0.751) or GAD-7 scores (2.5 ± 3.0 v. 2.3 ± 3.7; P = 0.143) between the two groups. Among patients with myocardial bridge, gender was the only independent risk factor for SSD. Women were 3.119 times more likely to experience SSD compared with men (95% CI 1.537–6.329; P = 0.002).

Conclusions

Our findings emphasise the high prevalence and severity of SSD among patients with myocardial bridge. The screening for SSD should be of particular concern, especially among female patients.

Information

Type
Paper
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Royal College of Psychiatrists
Figure 0

Fig. 1 Odds ratios of somatic symptom disorder, depressive disorder and anxiety disorder between myocardial bridge and non-myocardial bridge groups. The non-myocardial bridge group was set as the reference category (reference: 1). Binary logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the odds ratios, adjusting for gender, age, smoking, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, myocardial infarction and percutaneous coronary intervention.

Figure 1

Table 1 Univariate analyses and binary logistic regression models of risk factors of somatic symptom disorder among patients with myocardial bridge

Figure 2

Fig. 2 Comparison of mean values of 20 items between patients with or without myocardial bridge, using independent two-sample t-tests. Each item demonstrated higher scores among patients with myocardial bridge. GAD-7, Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7; PHQ-9, Patient Health Questionnaire-9; SSS-CN, Somatic Symptom Scale-China.

Figure 3

Fig. 3 Association of degree of systolic compression and Somatic Symptom Scale-China (SSS-CN) score in patients with myocardial bridge. Analyses were conducted with Spearman correlation coefficients. Red dots represent women, blue dots represent men and the lines depict the correlation trends between the degree of systolic compression and SSS-CN score. The subfigure on the right provides a gender-based subgroup analysis to observe distinct correlation trends between different genders.

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