Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 53, Issue 1 36-49, Copyright © 1991 by American Psychosomatic Society

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Cook-Medley Hostility scale and subsets: relationship to demographic and psychosocial characteristics in young adults in the CARDIA study

L Scherwitz, L Perkins, M Chesney and G Hughes
Department of Dental Public Health and Hygiene, University of California, San Francisco 94143.

This report describes the relationships between scores obtained on the Cook-Medley Hostility (Ho) scale and race, education, gender, and age in a sample of 5115 young adult participants in a prospective study of coronary heart disease (CHD) risk factors. Large differences were observed in total Ho scale scores and in six recently identified subsets according to race, education, gender, and age. Young black males with limited education had the highest Ho scale levels (mean = 26.2) while older white females with more education had the lowest levels (mean = 15.5). In all subgroups, education was inversely associated with hostility. The findings suggest a possible mechanism whereby CHD risk is higher in males than females, in the less educated than the more educated, and in blacks than whites. In all race and gender subgroups, total Ho scale scores and the six subsets were positively correlated with negative life events and negatively correlated with social support, supporting a pattern of psychosocial vulnerability found in other studies.

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