Are social factors, stress experience, and personality traits associated with ischaemic heart disease in women?
Psychological stress, higher parity, and specific personality traits like aggression and neurotic self-assertiveness are associated with ischaemic heart disease in women.
Abstract. No significant differences in socio‐economic status were found between women with IHD and women in the general population. No correlation was found between status incongruity of husband and wife and ischaemic heart disease. Women who had four children or more were significantly over‐represented among those who had myocardial infarction and among those with ECG changes suggestive of ischaemic heart disease. Psychological stress, both when measured as psycho‐social stress factors and as subjective stress experience, was significantly more common in women with myocardial infarction and in women with angina pectoris than in women in the general population. Among personality traits assessed, the level of aggression and neurotic self‐assertiveness was significantly higher in women with myocardial infarction. Achievement and dominance displayed a tendency in the same direction but the differences did not reach statistical significance.
Bengtsson et al. (1973) studied this question.