Summary:
Purpose: The purpose of this study was the investigation of anxiety and phobic
anxiety levels in patients with coronary artery disease and the outline of
their psychopathological profile.
Material & Method: The population of the study was consisted of 202 patients
with coronary heart disease hospitalized in two public hospitals of Attica. For
the data collection it was used the psychometric tool of symptoms control scale
S.C.L.-90-R. For the data analysis there was used both the package SPSS-17 and
the t-test, Anova method.
Results: The total number of participating patients with coronary artery
disease 202 persons; of them 120 were men and 82 women. The profile of the
patients was heavy psychopathology. The Depression is in first place with
average (67,43), followed by somatization (66,51), phobic anxiety (63,10), and
immediately after follows the anxiety (65,96), the interpersonal sensitivity
(64,15), the phobic anxiety (63,10), the psychoticism (61,99), the aggression
(61,56), the compulsion (61,45), and finally the paranoid ideation (60,88).
According the statistical analysis of the results men show higher rates of
depression than women with p=0,031, while older patients somatize their anxiety
with p=0,033. Patients who have experienced more than one attacks show higher
rates of depression and phobic anxiety with p=0,011 and p=0,001, respectively.
Patients with heredity versus patients with no heredity show statistically
significant difference in interpersonal sensitivity with p=0,009 and psychotism
p=0,040. Those who use anxiolytics show statistically significant difference in
almost all the factors.
Conclusions: From the results of this study it is concluded that the profile of
patients with coronary artery disease is quite weary. Factors like patient’s
sex, number of experienced coronary attacks, the age of the disease’s onset as
well as the occupation are closely associated with anxiety and phobic anxiety.
Keywords:
Anxiety, Phobic anxiety, Coronary disease, Myocardial infarction, Anxiety disorders
