Psychiatric antecedents of myocardial infarction

Forty consecutive survivors after myocardial infarction (MI) were compared by means of a semistructured interview with a matched sample of 40 controls in respect of various psychosocial factors. The MI group reported a much higher prior occurrence of symptoms of anxiety and depression. The complaints included being tired, irritable, restless, upset and anxious, plus insomnia and anhedonia. Preceding stressful life events were about 2 1/2 times as common with the MI group. However, long-term persanality traits which were not recent additions due to psychiatric change before MI did not strongly discriminate between the two groups, and recognized variables such as cigarette smoking had a lesser association with MI. Similar results were obtained when information about each patient and each control was supplied by a close informant.