THE IMPACT OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS ON PROGNOSIS FOLLOWING MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION - IS IT MORE THAN DEPRESSION

This study examined the importance of major depression, depressive sym ptoms, history of major depression, anxiety, anger-in, anger-out, and perceived social support, measured in the hospital after a myocardial infarction (MI), in predicting cardiac events over the subsequent 12 m onths in a sample of 222 patients. Cardiac events included both recurr ences of acute coronary syndromes (unstable angina admissions and surv ived and nonsurvived MI recurrences) and probable arrhythmic events (s urvived cardiac arrests and arrhythmic deaths). Major depression, depr essive symptoms, anxiety, and history of major depression all signific antly predicted cardiac events. Multivariate analyses showed that depr essive symptoms, anxiety, and history of major depression each had an impact independent of each other, as well as of measures of cardiac di sease severity.