Iatrogenics and cardiac neurosis: a critique.

Abstract

The adjective iatrogenic (from iatros —physician, and genes —caused by) is now applied to illnesses that supposedly stem from or have become aggravated by medical treatment. Something that the physician has said or done has frightened the patient into a state of chronic anxiety about his health. Thus, a diagnosis of iatrogenic heart disease is popularly attached to a persistent cardiac neurosis that is presumed to have been caused by a physician's carelessness or callousness in explaining heart symptoms or minor heart findings to his patient. Practitioners and lay persons have long suspected that suggestion may be a symptom determinant in a considerable variety of functional disturbances. With respect to the heart, Conner's 1 widely read and oft-quoted description of psychic factors in cardiac disorders served to direct medical attention to baneful suggestions that seem to precipitate symptoms. More recently, Edward Weiss, 2 in discussing emotional factors in cardiovascular diseases,