The first statement of ESC on mental health and heart disease promotes integrated care

The new ESC clinical statement requires greater awareness of a multidirectional relationship between mental illness and cardiovascular disease to improve patients’ health. The first ESC clinical declaration in history that will be developed on this topic has been published today on ESC Congress 2025.

The statement of consensus recommends that the symptoms of mental health are systematically examined during cardiovascular care, and the cardiovascular risk is routinely assessed for people treated in the case of mental health.

While bad mental health can be a factor contributing to cardiovascular diseases, people living with cardiovascular diseases are also more vulnerable to bad mental health. Patients experiencing both cardiovascular and mental health have worse health results.

The statement of consensus was developed by the international expert panel, which includes the co -chairman Héctor Bueno from the National Cardiovascular Research Center (CNIC) and the Department of Cardiology at the University of Cambridge Universitario 12 de Ocubre, Madrid, Spain and Professor Christi Daton.

We want to raise the awareness of a multidirectional relationship between mental health and cardiovascular diseases. Each of them increases the risk of a second, and people with both conditions have worse results and the highest negative health loads. In this consensus document, we sum up what we know about how to prevent or minimize negative results, but also emphasize significant gaps in our knowledge that should be urgently solved. “

Professor Christi Deaton, Emerita Professor of Nursing, University of Cambridge, Great Britain

The new statement of consensus also recommends that mental health and psychosocial risk of risk factors become part of a cardiovascular risk assessment in healthy people.

Significant changes in clinical cardiovascular care are recommended by a consensus statement. This includes the establishment of Psycho-KARDIO teams, multidisciplinary teams to treat patients, including mental health specialists, such as psychologists or psychiatrists, cooperating with professionals in cardiovascular care. These teams should be integrated with standard care and adapted to local needs.

A statement of consensus is proposed by a cultural change in order to treat a deadly combination of mental diseases and cardiovascular diseases.

This will require improvement of patient care, such as professionals who recognize the complex relationship between mental health and cardiovascular diseases, cooperating to integrate both areas of care, in this way in favor of changes in order to implement better integrated care focused on a person who is adapted to individual circumstances.

This would create a significant change, because most of the current cardiovascular models do not currently consider mental health as the main goal.

“Clinical cardiovascular practice often omits the impact of mental health and the importance of including it in care. We need to see how employees of vascular circulatory service develop cooperation with mental health specialists in psycho-kardio teams to help identify early mental health in our patients and improve care and support for patients and their carers.

“We advise that mental health is actively considered during clinical visits and that screening on mental health states becomes part of the assessment of patients at regular intervals. We are also in favor of psychological support of carers,” Professor Bueno summed up.

The statement of consensus is presented in problems, including:

• Limited recognition among healthcare professionals about the occurrence and dissemination of mental diseases in people with cardiovascular diseases and impact on the quality of life, therapeutic adhesion and health results.

The statement of consensus is also presented by significant gaps in knowledge about the mutual relationship between mental health, cardiovascular health and diseases. This includes the lack of protocols based on evidence:

Lack of evidence of how to best support people living with severe mental illnesses is particularly significant, including the best prevention of cardiovascular diseases in people living with severe mental illness and care for people who have both serious mental illnesses and cardiovascular diseases. There is also a need to re -calibrate cardiovascular risk results for people living with severe mental illness.

People with serious mental illness are exposed to increased supra -commercial and chamber threats of arrhythmia, which can ultimately lead to sudden death of the heart. Increased risk of arrhythmia is caused by many factors, including stress resulting from their mental health, high dissemination of risk factors, an unhealthy lifestyle and potentially some drugs.

“We hope that the statement of consensus will cause a change that authorizes patients to discuss mental health with cardiovascular specialists, and that they will have a better chance that it will be taken seriously. This means access to timely assessment, management and support that must improve mental health,” Professor Deaton summed up.

The clinical statement “ESC in 2025 on mental health and cardiovascular diseases” was developed by the Task group for mental health and cardiovascular diseases of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). The statement was approved by the European Federation of Psychologists Associations, the European Psychiatric Association and the International Association of Behavioral Medicine.