The ischemic heart disease life stress monitoring program: impact on mortality.

Based on evidence that life stress is a precursor of ischemic heart disease episodes, a randomized control trial of a stress monitoring and intervention program was instituted involving 453 male myocardial infarction patients. Program patients were monitored monthly by telephone for 1 year using the General Health Questionnaire. Whenever a patient's score rose above a critical level, he received a variety of interventions aimed at stress reduction. Results showed that the treated group registered a greater decline in stress scores than controls and, although rehospitalizations and their durations did not differ, there were significantly fewer deaths in the monitored group. It is suggested that stress-relieving programs may have a greater impact in reducing cardiac deaths than in preventing nonlethal coronary episodes.