[A set of questionnaires for the assessment (screening) of psychological disorders and social problems in cardiac rehabilitation patients].

A set of questionnaires for the assessment (screening) of psychological and social problems in cardiac rehabilitation patients is analyzed for its psychometric properties. The test battery had before been consented by a task force of the German Association for the Prevention and Rehabilitation of Cardiovascular Disease, DGPR. It integrates generally approved and well-tried assessments for depression/anxiety, social isolation (vocational) stress, and subjective vocational disability.

Psychological effects of training in coronary patients: a critical review of the literature.

Past studies have claimed that vigorous exercise programmes have positive effects on postinfarction patients' mental health. Results of controlled studies suggest that a significant antidepressant effect of exercise on postinfarction patients has not been shown reliably. The evidence also suggests that in the long run neither anxiety and pain threshold nor social anxiety are reduced by physical exertion.

Psychological and vocational long-term outcomes of cardiac rehabilitation with postinfarction patients under the age of forty.

70 male postinfarction patients, who were under 40 years of age at the time of transmural myocardial infarction, participated in an inpatient control examination 3.8 years following first hospitalization (mean age: 40 years, SD = 3.5 years).

Coronary prone behavior and cardiovascular reactions during the German version of the type A interview and during a quiz.

Type A behavior (TABP) was assessed in 212 German policemen using the structured interview (Si), whereby 10% were classified as A1 (= extreme type A), 48% as A2 (= moderate), 13% as X (= indefinite), and 29% as B (= non type A) by two independent raters. Moreover, traditional risk factors were assessed: serum cholesterol (CHOL) including high density (HDL) and low density cholesterols (LDL), cigarette smoking habits; at rest, during the Si and during a quiz systolic (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), as well as heart rate (HR) were measured, and pressure-rate-index (PRi) was calculated. As in this group of policemen TABP and many of the investigated parameters were dependent on age, in a preliminary data analysis 18 type A1 subjects (group A) were compared to 18 age matched type B or X subjects (group B).

The Type - A behavior pattern applied to problems in the rehabilitation of MI - patients below age 40: associations with personality dimensions and psychophysiological parameters essential to CHD.

In a sample of 60 MI-patients below age 40 there were mainly found correlations between the component "hostility" and personality dimensions indicating job stress and problems in the patients adjustment to their new situation as chronically ill persons. Whereas self- and expert ratings do not differentiate between Type A1 and B subjects psychophysiological testing reveals a groups difference between both groups in Ps. Therefore it can be assumed, that in daily life Type A MI-patients are prone to respond with an elevated Ps.