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Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 53, Issue 2 176-184, Copyright © 1991 by American Psychosomatic Society

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Personality and coronary heart disease

RB Shekelle, SW Vernon and AM Ostfeld
University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston.

Three MMPI variables--HsK + Hy, neuroticism, and somatic complaints--were positively associated with incidence of uncomplicated angina pectoris and not significantly associated with incidence of myocardial infarction and coronary death in a 10-year cohort study of 2003 employed middle-aged men. All three were negatively associated with risk of coronary death after the diagnosis of uncomplicated angina had been established. These results support the hypothesis that tendencies to report somatic complaints or to experience negative, distressing emotions chronically are not related to incidence of coronary heart disease but are associated with incidence of a relative benign, nonatherosclerotic condition that is similar clinically to angina pectoris. Also, HsK + Hy and somatic complaints were positively associated with risk of coronary death in men who had survived an initial myocardial infarction. This result does not indicate an association with coronary hearth disease itself because all of these men already had coronary heart disease. This result may indicate that the tendency to report somatic complaints is related to increased susceptibility to acute emotional stressors that can trigger arrhythmias in an ischemic myocardium.


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