FACTORS THAT AFFECT WORKING CAPACITY OF P ATIENTS WITH ISCHEMIC-HEART-DISEASE REFERRED FOR CORONARY-BYPASS SURGERY

In order to elucidate causes of loss of working capacity of patients r eferred for coronary artery bypass grafting clinical, psychological an d medico-social parameters were obtained from 136 patients who had bee n working prior to admission for surgery and 111 who had not. No diffe rences were found in characteristics of somatic status between patient s of these two groups. But patients who continued to work had higher l evel of education, less pronounced changes of psychological status and higher motivation for work. The group of nonworking patients was hete rogeneous. It comprised patients a) with high motivation for work and pronounced lowering of tolerance to physical exercise (highest probabi lity of return to work); b) with low motivation for work and high phys ical working capacity (very low probability of return to work); c) pat ients with pronounced mental disturbances (prospects of return to work could be improved by psychocorrection).