[Premonitory psychiatric signs of cardiovascular complaints]

The present study attempts to find out whether 19 behaviors, identified in 1952 and considered as revealing of a psychoneurotic state, appear more often among subjects who complain, 16 years later (in 1968), of a cardiovascular problem than among the subjects who remain free of any cardiovascular complaint during this period. The sample analysed comes from an epidemiological survey, realized by Leighton and known by the name Stirling County Study. That study includes 654 subjects free of any cardiovascular complaint in 1952. These subjects were divided into five independent categories in terms of the presence or absence of certain cardiovascular complaints expressed in 1968. The five categories of cardiovascular complaints were compared as to the frequency and nature of the psychiatric characteristics which differentiate them. Three conclusions appear from this study. 1. The psychiatric characteristics (identified in 1952) are more numerous among the subjects who manifest, 16 years later, a cardiovascular complaint (identified in 1968), when one compares them to the psychiatric characteristics of those who do not develop any cardiovascular complaint during this period. 2. The patterns of psychiatric characteristics which differentiate the subjects who develop a cardiovascular complaint vary with sex. These patterns are much more broad, coherent, and differentiating among women. 3. The accumulation of psychiatric characteristics possesses, among women, a differentiating value greater than any characteristic taken alone.