Fear of movement and its associated psychosocial factors in heart failure patients: a cross-sectional study

Fear of movement is a significant obstacle to daily activities, which may lead to adverse outcomes in patients with heart failure. This study aimed to examine the prevalence of fear of movement and to identify psychosocial factors associated with fear of movement in heart failure patients.

In this cross-sectional study, a total of 305 heart failure patients were recruited from three cardiovascular units of a university hospital. Self-reported questionnaires were used to measure fear of movement, cardiac anxiety, depressive symptoms, subjective social status, education, monthly income, and employment status. The results showed that 178 (58.4%) patients were accompanied with fear of movement. Hierarchical linear regression analysis showed that scores for cardiac anxiety (β = 0.254, P < 0.001) and depressive symptoms (β = 0.308, P < 0.001), as well as being employed (β = 0.186, P < 0.001) were positively associated with fear of movement score, while the score for subjective social status (β = –0.101, P = 0.038) was negatively associated with fear of movement score. The four independent variables accounted for 30.3% of the variance in fear of movement.

Fear of movement is common in patients with heart failure. Cardiac anxiety, depressive symptoms, subjective social status, and employment status were associated with patients’ fear of movement. This indicates that measures should be taken to screen and manage patients’ fear of movement. Furthermore, alleviating cardiac anxiety and depressive symptoms may be important to consider in relieving fear of movement in heart failure patients, especially for those who are employed and with low subjective social status.