Hostility scores are associated with increased risk of cardiovascular events in women undergoing coronary angiography: a report from the NHLBI-Sponsored WISE Study.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate hostility-related personality traits assessed by the Cook Medley Hostility Inventory and to relate these to the occurrence of adverse cardiac events in women with suspected myocardial ischemia.


METHODS
The cohort included 506 women with suspected coronary artery disease from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute-sponsored Women's Ischemia Syndrome Evaluation (WISE) study. We examined individual components of the Cook Medley Hostility Score (CMHS) measuring cynicism, hostile affect, and aggressive responding, and a total CMHS (sum of these three) and associations with adverse events (defined as hospitalization for angina, nonfatal myocardial infarction, stroke, congestive heart failure (CHF) other vascular events and death) during 3 to 6 years follow-up using Cox proportional hazard modeling.


RESULTS
Women with adverse events had higher total CMHS (10.6 +/- 5.5) than women without any of these events (9.2 +/- 5.1) p = .02. They also had poorer survival by Kaplan-Meier analysis (log-rank p < .05). Unadjusted Cox models showed that the individual scores of cynicism and aggressive responding and the total CMHS were associated with more adverse events (all p < .05). Women with total CMHS above the median had a 35% increase risk of an adverse event in comparison to women with lower scores. In a risk-adjusted Cox model, the hazard ratio for an adverse event was 1.5 (p = .03) for women with total CMHS above the median.


CONCLUSIONS
In this cohort of women with suspected myocardial ischemia, higher Cook Medley scores reflecting cynicism, hostile affect, and aggressive responding were associated with poorer 3 to 6 year event-free survival and a higher risk of adverse events. After adjusting for risk factors and CAD, the association with risk for adverse events increased.
Olson
Marian B
MB
Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15261, USA. molson@hs.pitt.edu
Krantz
David S
DS
Kelsey
Sheryl F
SF
Pepine
Carl J
CJ
Sopko
George
G
Handberg
Eileen
E
Rogers
William J
WJ
Gierach
Gretchen L
GL
McClure
Candace K
CK
Merz
C Noel Bairey
CN
D000368:Aged; D000374:Aggression / Q000502:physiology; D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000523:psychology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D017023:Coronary Angiography; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006791:Hostility; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology / Q000523:psychology*; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D016019:Survival Analysis