Arrhythmia Risk During the 2016 US Presidential Election: The Cost of Stressful Politics

Abstract

Background Anger and extreme stress can trigger potentially fatal cardiovascular events in susceptible people. Political elections, such as the 2016 US presidential election, are significant stressors. Whether they can trigger cardiac arrhythmias is unknown. Methods and Results In this retrospective case‐crossover study, we linked cardiac device data, electronic health records, and historic voter registration records from 2436 patients with implanted cardiac devices. The incidence of arrhythmias during the election was compared with a control period with Poisson regression. We also tested for effect modification by demographics, comorbidities, political affiliation, and whether an individual's political affiliation was concordant with county‐level election results. Overall, 2592 arrhythmic events occurred in 655 patients during the hazard period compared with 1533 events in 472 patients during the control period. There was a significant increase in the incidence of composite outcomes for any arrhythmia (incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.77 [95% CI, 1.42–2.21]), supraventricular arrhythmia (IRR, 1.82 [95% CI, 1.36–2.43]), and ventricular arrhythmia (IRR, 1.60 [95% CI, 1.22–2.10]) during the election relative to the control period. There was also an increase in specific types of arrhythmia, including atrial fibrillation (IRR, 1.50 [95% CI, 1.06–2.11]), supraventricular tachycardia (IRR, 3.7 [95% CI, 2.2–6.2]), nonsustained ventricular tachycardia (IRR, 1.7 [95% CI, 1.3–2.2]), and daily atrial fibrillation burden ( P <0.001). No significant interaction was found for sex, race/ethnicity, device type, age ≥65 years, hypertension, coronary artery disease, heart failure, political affiliation, or concordance between individual political affiliation and county‐level election results. Conclusions There was a significant increase in cardiac arrhythmias during the 2016 US presidential election. These findings suggest that exposure to stressful sociopolitical events may trigger arrhythmogenesis in susceptible people.