title: Health-related quality of life is associated with positive affect in patients with coronary heart disease entering cardiac rehabilitation.
abstract: Health-related quality of life (QoL) is an important and widely used outcome measure in cardiac populations. We examined the relationship between positive affect and health-related quality of life, controlling for traditional cardiovascular risk factors, clinical variables and negative affect. We further investigated the role of gender in this relationship given the well-known gender differences in cardiovascular health. We enrolled 746 patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) before they entered outpatient cardiac rehabilitation. All patients completed the Global Mood Scale and the SF-36 Health Survey. Positive affect was independently associated with mental (p < .001) and physical QoL (p < .001) after controlling for control variables. Gender moderated the relationship between positive affect and physical QoL (p = .009) but not mental QoL (p = .60). Positive affect was positively associated with physical QoL in men (p < .001) but not in women (p = .44). The health-related QoL of patients with CHD is associated with a person's level of positive affect.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Internal Medicine, Division of Psychosomatic Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital, 3010 Bern, Switzerland. stefanie.stauber@insel.ch
authors.forename: Stefanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Stauber
authors.forename: Jean-Paul
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Schmid
authors.forename: Hugo
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Saner
authors.forename: Hansjörg
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Znoj
authors.forename: Gaby
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Saner
authors.forename: Johannes
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Grolimund
authors.forename: Roland
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: von Känel
mesh_terms: D000339:Affect; D000368:Aged; D000553:Ambulatory Care; D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation; D011379:Prognosis; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology*; D012737:Sex Factors; D013557:Switzerland