Psychological factors and coronary heart disease

Coronary heart disease (CAD) results from an interaction of different somatic, environmental and behavioral risk factors. Commonly, development of CAD is associated with arterial hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes mellitus, smoking, sedentary life style and the like. Psychological factors in their own sake or in combination with other risk factors are also important for genesis of CAD. In this study, 170 people that were diagnosed with CAD and 170 healthy controls of corresponding sex and age were compared for anxiety, aggressiveness and Eysenck's two personality dimension. The data indicate that patients with CAD have very low level of anxiety and aggressiveness and very high level of neuroticism relative to the controls.