Abstract

ALTENHOFEN, Viviane; LIMA, Natália Britz de  and  CASTRO, Elisa Kern de. Illness perception in cardiac patients: a systematic review. Est. Inter. Psicol. [online]. 2016, vol.7, n.2, pp. 45-63. ISSN 2236-6407.

This systematic review of literature aimed to investigate articles published between 2009 and 2015 about illness perception in cardiac patients, based on the Common Sense Model (CSM). Searches were performed at the databases PsycInfo, Medline e PubMed. The descriptors used were cardiac disease, illness perception, illness representation and illness beliefs. The results showed that cardiac disease is associated to serious consequences to patient’s life, with causes attributed to factors regardless of the individual’s behavior (psychological causes, hereditary, virus, bad luck, etc.). Furthermore, cardiac patients tend to believe more in treatment to control than in personal control.

Keywords : cardiac disease; illness perception; illness representation; beliefs.

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