Purpose: To examine the relationship between patients' reports of palpitations and documented arrhythmias.
Patients and methods: Consecutive patients complaining of palpitations and referred for 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiographic monitoring were studied using self-report questionnaires and a structured diagnostic interview. Electrocardiographic results were subsequently analyzed in conjunction with symptom diaries. Positive predictive value was used to estimate the likelihood that a reported symptom coincided with a documented arrhythmia. Sensitivity was calculated as a measure of the likelihood that an arrhythmia would be detected and reported as a symptom.
Results: Positive predictive value was inversely related to somatization, hypochondriacal attitudes, and psychiatric symptoms. It was not related to chronicity of palpitations, previously diagnosed heart disease, more extensive medical care utilization, or clinically significant arrhythmias. Patients were generally insensitive to their arrhythmias, failing to note the vast majority.
Conclusions: Somatizing and hypochondriacal patients are not more sensitive to or accurately aware of subtle changes in cardiac activity, but rather may be expressing a response bias toward reporting somatic and psychologic distress in general. Apparently, patients do not learn to discriminate and detect cardiac activity more accurately as a result of having more medical care or suffering longer with their symptoms.