IJCS | Volume 32, Nº5, September/October 2019

448 in three outpatients cardiac clinics from Canada. 6 Its validation in a Brazilian sample of cardiological patients is an important step towards the implementation of routine psychological evaluation in a poor country such as Brazil. Its widespread availability as a free instrument, brief application period and simplicity of assessment (self-report) will hopefully support the operationalization of psychological evaluation both in daily clinical practice and research studies in cardiological samples, both of which have been somewhat set aside in our country, despite worldwide trends in the opposite direction. Remarkably, amongst the STOP-D features is the absence of somatic symptoms of stress, anxiety and depression within its items. This can be a valuable characteristicwhendealingwithpatientswithoverlapping symptoms of cardiological conditions and mental disorders, but can also contribute for overlooking patients also in need of adequate psychosocial management. With this inmind, the tradeoff between assessing psychosocial issues in cardiological patients with low costs and widespread availability and possibly overlooking somatic symptoms of anxiety and depression is likely highly beneficial. Considering the low sensibility of general practitioners to detect certain kinds of associated mental disorders 7 and current efforts to better elucidate health factors associated with CVD in order to reduce mortality rates, 8 the study by Gontijo and colleagues will certainly find a fertile ground in our practice. 1. da Costa JM. On irritable heart: a clinical study of a form of functional cardiac disorder and its consequences. Am J M Sc. 1871;61(121):17-52. 2. AlGhatrif M, Lindsay J. A brief review: history to understand fundamentals of electrocardiography. J Community Hosp Intern Med Perspect. 2012;2(1):14383. 3. Insel T, Cuthbert B, Garvey M, Heinssen R, Pine DS, Quinn K, et al. Research domain criteria (RDoC): Toward a newclassification framework for research on mental disorders. Am J Psychiatry. 2010;167(7):748-51. 4. Delisle VC, Beck AT, Ziegelstein RC, Thombs BD. Symptoms of heart disease or its treatment may increase Beck Depression Inventory Scores in hospitalized post-myocardial infarction patients. J Psychosom Res. 2012;73(3):157-62. 5. Gontijo IBR, Souza JR, Barbosa DF, Rassi S. Validation of the Brazilian Version of the Screening Tool for Psychosocial Distress (Stop-D) for Cardiac Patients. Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2019;32(5):438-446. 6. Young Q, Ignaszewski A. Brief screen to identify 5 of the most common forms of psychosocial distress in cardiac patients validation of the screening tool for psychological distress. J Cardiovasc Nurs. 2007; 22(6):525-34. 7. Fernández A, Rubio-Valera M, Bellón JA, Pinto-Meza A, Luciano JV, Mendive JM, et al. Recognition of anxiety disorders by the general practitioner: results from the DASMAP Study. Gen Hosp Psychiatry. 2012;34(3):227-33. 8. Lloyd-Jones DM, Hong Y, Labarthe D, Mozaffarian D, Appel LJ, Van Horn L, et al. Defining and setting national goals for cardiovascular health promotion and disease reduction: the American Heart Association's strategic Impact Goal through 2020 and beyond. Circulation. 2010;121(4):586-613. References Silva & Escobar Anxiety, depression, stress and the heart Int J Cardiovasc Sci. 2019;32(5):447-448 Editorial This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License