Psychological implications of the application of health state continuous monitoring systems in cardiovascular pathologies

Abstract

In recent years, specialist literature has particularly focused on the understanding of the modes of psychological adaptation to organic pathologies. A number of close investigations within the fields of medical and health psychology have been devoted to the analysis of situations characterised by a state of chronicity of organic pathology. Relying on the data deriving from such studies, the different authors tend to point out that illnesses represent a threat to the subject’s psychophysical and relational integrity, thus constituting as a source of frustration and anxiety. Researchers belonging to different theoretical approaches raise a number of questions as to the role of personality and/or the subjective mode to react to tough, stressful, unexpected, negative situations, such as the emergence of a severe physical illness. Current research approaches essentially intend to explain the individual differences in the reactivity to negative stimuli by analysing the interactions between situational attributes and personality dispositions (for instance, trait anxiety).