Perspectives that lay persons with and without health problems show toward coronary heart disease: An integrated biopsychosocial approach

Objective

We studied what patients with acute coronary heart disease (CHD) considered the three most stressful factors experienced during the month before testing and what they attributed their heart disease to.

Methods

We studied the occurrence and severity of physiologic, psychologic, and psychosocial stressors in 117 patients with acute CHD and 117 referents, not diagnosed with CHD, matched by age, sex, and municipality. The subjects were first to select the factors they considered stressful from a list of potentially stressful factors. They were then to select the three they regarded as most stressful and to provide situational accounts of these.

Results

The patients with CHD were found to less frequently live with a partner, to more frequently have a body mass index higher than 30.0, and to report a greater number of stressors. The stressors best differentiating them from the referents were fatigue, shortness of breath, pain, and high blood pressure. The causal factors they most frequently named were heart problems, smoking, heredity, high workload, and poor eating habits.

Conclusions

The situational accounts the patients provided illustrate the biopsychosocial complexities involved in the various categories of stressful factors.