Neutrophilic granulocyte percentage is associated with anxiety in Chinese hospitalized heart failure patients

Background In patients with heart failure, anxiety disorder is common and associated with adverse prognosis. This study intended to find more confounding factors of Chinese heart failure patients. Methods We enrolled 284 hospitalized heart failure patients, whose New York Heart Association (NYHA) classed as II-IV and left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≤ 45%. All the patients were scaled in Hamilton Rating Scale for Anxiety (14-items) (HAM-A14). Ordinal logistic regression analysis was performed to examine the association of correlated factors with anxiety disorder. Results There were 184 patients had anxiety accounting for 64.8% of all 284 hospitalized heart failure patients. The neutrophilic granulocyte percentage, urea nitrogen, total bilirubin and brain natriuretic peptide were positively associated with HAM-A14 score, meanwhile, the hemoglobin, red blood cells counts, albumin and LVEF were negatively associated with HAM-A14 score (All P < 0.05). After the adjustments of sex, hemoglobin, urea nitrogen, total bilirubin, albumin and brain natriuretic peptide, the neutrophilic granulocyte percentage was significantly associated with anxiety (OR = 43.265, P = 0.012). The neutrophilic granulocyte percentage was 0.616 ± 0.111, 0.640 ± 0.102, 0.681 ± 0.106 and 0.683 ± 0.113 in heart failure patients with no anxiety, possible anxiety, confirmed anxiety and obvious anxiety, respectively. Conclusions Neutrophilic granulocyte percentage as well as the traditional risk factors such as sex, urea nitrogen and brain natriuretic peptide is associated with anxiety in hospitalized heart failure patients.