Psychological Correlates of Mental Stress-induced Ischemia in the Laboratory

Participants consisted of 184 patients (160 males, 24 females) with positive angiograms or prior myocardial infarctions who displayed at least 1 mm of ST segment depression on a standardized treadmill test. Mean scores on the Reward Dependence subscale of the Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire were higher in patients displaying ischemia during mental stress. Patients who reported higher levels of irritability/anger in response to the Speech stressor were also more likely to display ischemia. However, this result was primarily a result of the females in the sample whose ratings of interest and irritability were associated with ischemia during the Speech task. Psychometric measures previously found in prospective studies to predict acute cardiac events were unrelated to mental stress-induced ischemia in the laboratory.