Fear of physical activity in patients with heart failure and associations with anxiety scores and self-reported physical activity

<p>Physical activity (PA) is recommended for patients with stable chronic heart failure, but adherence to such recommendations is generally low. We used the recently developed &ldquo;Fear of Activity in Situations - Heart Failure&rdquo; questionnaire (Hoffmann et al., 2018) to examine fear of PA along with heart-focused fear and trait anxiety in a multi-site study of 185 outpatients with chronic heart failure. Only fear of PA was associated with indicators of disease severity, self-reported avoidance of PA and exercise behavior. In addition, our findings suggest that attention towards and being distressed by heart failure symptoms play a central role in fear of PA, particularly in patients with a vigilant coping style who are used to direct their attention towards health threats.</p>