The ischemic heart disease life stress monitoring program: impact on mortality.
Based on evidence that life stress is a precursor of ischemic heart disease episodes, a randomized control trial of a stress monitoring and intervention program was instituted involving 453 male myocardial infarction patients. Program patients were monitored monthly by telephone for 1 year using the General Health Questionnaire. Whenever a patient's score rose above a critical level, he received a variety of interventions aimed at stress reduction. Results showed that the treated group registered a greater decline in stress scores than controls and, although rehospitalizations and their durations did not differ, there were significantly fewer deaths in the monitored group. It is suggested that stress-relieving programs may have a greater impact in reducing cardiac deaths than in preventing nonlethal coronary episodes.
D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000401:mortality / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D009729:Nursing; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D010359:Patient Readmission; D011792:Quebec; D011897:Random Allocation; D012008:Recurrence; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000628:therapy*