Are psychiatric symptoms and stressful life events associated with myocardial infarction in a general population?
Psychiatric symptoms such as interpersonal sensitivity and phobic anxiety, along with stressful life events, are associated with a history of myocardial infarction.
Psychosocial factors such as depression, hostility, social isolation are associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease. We aimed to determine the association of psychiatric symptoms and psychosocial factors with myocardial infarction (Ml). We performed a secondary analysis of data from a population-based survey of Iranians aged 18-15 years using standardized psychosocial instruments. Of the 2158 participants, 51 had suffered an Ml. In univariate analysis: number of stressful life events, stressfulness, somatization, depression, anxiety, phobic anxiety and psychoticism were significantly associated with Ml(P < 0.05). In multivariate logistic regression, interpersonal sensitivity (P= 0.047), phobic anxiety (P = 0.016) number of stressful life events (P= 0.054), stressfulness (P= 0.057) and age (P = 0.001) remained at significanty associated with Ml.
Hatmi et al. (Sun,) studied this question.