Psychosomatic Medicine 28:808-821 (1966)
© 1966 American Psychosomatic Society

Psychological Reactions of Hospitalized Male Patients to a Heart Attack

Age and Social-Class Differences

¹ Psychiatric Service, Beth Israel Hospital, and the Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.; Research Division, Bank Street College of Education, New York, N. Y.
² Psychiatric Service, Beth Israel Hospital, and the Harvard Medical School, Boston, Mass.

Fifty male patients, 35-67 years of age, hospitalized because of heart attack, showed striking differences in their overt psychological responses to their illness. Responses ranged from frank depression to cheerfulness, from extreme anxiety to casualness, and from scrupulous cooperation with the medical regimen to active defiance. Ratings on these variables were based on systematic interview data obtained from attending nurses. Additional data were obtained through series of interviews with 20 patients and physicians. Analysis of the data suggested the importance of age and social class factors in the observed differences. The findings are discussed with reference to research on normal personality changes with age, and to reports on social class differences.

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