N. Frasuresmith et al., THE IMPACT OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS ON PROGNOSIS FOLLOWING MYOCARDIAL-INFARCTION - IS IT MORE THAN DEPRESSION, Health psychology, 14(5), 1995, pp. 388-398
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.