Figure 1: Algorithm representing the basic study design.

*As per the definitions of the Heart Failure Association of the ESC, those patients in whom acute cardiac symptoms were the primary reason for seeking medical care were diagnosed pSC and those cases in whom hospitalisation resulted for other medical, surgical, obstetric, anaesthetic or psychiatric conditions, were diagnosed with sSC.

†pSC was already excluded based on definition.

ESC = European Society of Cardiology; LV = left ventricular; pSC = primary stress cardiomyopathy; sSC = secondary stress cardiomyopathy