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PSYCHIATRIC ANTECEDENTS OF MYOCARDIAL INFARCTION
Author(s) -
Bianchi Geoffrey,
Fergusson David,
Walshe James
Publication year - 1978
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1978.tb107861.x
Subject(s) - anxiety , psychosocial , myocardial infarction , depression (economics) , psychiatry , personality , medicine , anhedonia , neuroticism , clinical psychology , psychology , schizophrenia (object oriented programming) , social psychology , economics , macroeconomics
Forty consecutive survivors after myocardial infarction (MI) were compared by means of a semistructured interview with a matched sample of 40 controls in respect of various psychosocial factors. The MI group reported a much higher prior occurrence of symptoms of anxiety and depression. The complaints included being tired, irritable, restless, upset and anxious, plus insomnia and anhedonia. Preceding stressful life events were about 2½ times as common with the MI group. However, long‐term personality traits which were not recent additions due to psychiatric change before MI did not strongly discriminate between the two groups, and recognized variables such as cigarette smoking had a lesser association with MI. Similar results were obtained when information about each patient and each control was supplied by a close informant.