The Role of Emotional Competence in Tako-tsubo Cardiomyopathy.

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Psychosomatic Medicine. To access the final edited and published work see doi: 10.1097/PSY.0000000000000564 OBJECTIVE: The current study examined the role of emotional competences and depression in Tako-tsubo Cardiomyopathy (TTC). METHODS: We compared 37 TTC patients who experienced emotion triggers (TTC-t: mean age 66.4 ± 12.8 years, 33 women) with 37 TTC patients who did not experience emotion triggers (TTC-nt: mean age 65.8 ± 11.1 years, 33 women) and 37 patients with Acute Myocardial Infarction who experienced an emotion trigger (AMI-t: mean age 66.1 ± 10.1 years, 33 women). Three aspects of emotional competence (emotional intelligence, metacognitive beliefs and emotional processing deficits) were assessed using the Trait Meta-Mood Scale (TMMS), the Meta-Cognitions Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30) and the Emotional Processing Scale (EPS). Differences between group means were evaluated using MANCOVA, adjusting for depressive symptomatology (Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression; HAM-D). RESULTS: Compared to the TTC-nt and AMI-t comparison groups, TTC-t patients had low scores on emotional intelligence (TMMS Attention: F [2, 184] = 23.10; p < .001. TMMS Repair: F [2, 184] = 11.98; p < .001), and high scores in metacognitive beliefs and emotional processing deficits (e.g. MCQ-30 Negative Beliefs about Thoughts: F [2, 184] = 56.93; p < .001), independent of the levels of depressive symptomatology. TTC-nt patients also had significantly lower scores on the HAM-D scale compared to AMI-t (p = 0.021) and TTC-t (p = 0.004) patients. CONCLUSIONS: TTC-t patients showed a specific dysfunctional profile of emotional competence, even after adjusting for depressive symptomatology. These results provided a better understanding of the psychological factors that contribute to Tako-tsubo Cardiomyopathy.