Protocol for a systematic review of screening tools for fear of recurrent illness in common life threatening diseases

A myocardial infarction (MI) (‘heart attack’) can be intensely stressful, and the impact of this event can leave patients with clinically significant post-MI stress symptoms. Untreated stress can make heart disease worse. Few tools are available that screen for specific thoughts or beliefs that can trigger post-MI stress responses. In other life-threatening illnesses, fear of recurrence (FoR) of illness has been identified as a key stressor, and screening tools have been developed to identify this. The aim of this review is to identify FoR screening tools used in other common life-threatening diseases that report on the development of the tool, to assess if there are any that can be adapted for use in MI survivors so that those with high levels of FoR can be identified and helped.

Citation

Systematic Reviews, 2015, 4(10)

Publisher

BioMed Central

Journal

Systematic Reviews

URI

http://hdl.handle.net/10034/550609

DOI

10.1186/20464053410

Type

Article

Language

en

Description

This is the authors' accepted version of an article published in Systematic Reviews, 2015.

ISSN

2046-4053

Additional Links

http://www.systematicreviewsjournal.com/