The Relationship of Psychosocial Factors to Coronary Heart Disease in the Framingham Study

Abstract

Questionnaires administered to 1822 members of the Framingham Heart Study from 1965 to 1967 provided measures of personality type, sociocultural mobility, situational stress and somatic strain. Clusters of questions selected by a panel of experts, and verified by item and factor analysis, formed scales of Type A behavior and other psychosocial states. The Framingham Type A behavior scale was significantly correlated with daily stress (.47), emotional lability (.43), tension (.42), anger symptoms (.34), and ambitiousness (.31). Women were less likely than men to be ambitious and to exhibit the Framingham Type A behavior, and were more likely than men to be emotionally labile, tense, and to suppress hostility. Few consistent associations were found between psychosocial stress measures and levels of blood pressure or cholesterol. Social status and marital conflicts were significantly associated with patterns of smoking. The Framingham Type A behavior pattern and other psychosocial measures were not related to the level of CHD risk, as determined by the Framingham logistic equations.

Decreased HDL2 and HDL3 cholesterol, Apo A-I and Apo A-II, and increased risk of myocardial infarction.

“…A physical activity index, expressed in kilocalories (1 kcal-4.2 ki) per week, was obtained by summing stairs climbed, blocks walked, and recreation and leisure-time activities.19 Body mass index was calculated as (weight in kilograms)/(height in meters).2 Information was collected on dietary intake during the year before infarction (for the cases) or interview (for the controls) by using a self-administered food frequency questionnaire, and total calories (1 calorie-4.2 J) as well as percentage of calories as saturated fat were calculated.20 Type A behavior was assessed using questions adapted from the Framingham Heart Study. 21 Using these methods, a total of 340 case-control pairs were interviewed, representing participation rates of approximately 84% among eligible cases and 60% among controls. Fasting venous blood samples were obtained from cases approximately 8 weeks after hospital discharge and from controls on the same day or within a week of the day of the matching case.…”

Display Rules and Strain in Service Jobs: What’s Fairness Got to Do With It?

“…Females view being inexpressive in a situation that has display rules to be censurable and that expressing negative emotions is incompatible with being feminine (Haynes, Levine, Scotch, Feinleib, & Kannel, 1978;Lerner, 1985). In fact, women are seen as more likable when expressing positive emotions than men are (Fischer, 1993;Shields, 1987).…”

Income and recurrent events after a coronary event in women

“…In measuring the availability of social interaction, the shortened version of the Interview Schedule for Social Interaction [41] was used. To determine anger-related characteristics of the participants, the anger symptoms, the anger-in, the anger-out and the anger-discuss subscales of the Framingham Anger Scale [42] were administered.…”