Intermittent ST depression and mortality after myocardial infarction.

Background: We conducted a case-control analysis to determine the contribution made to mortality by intermittent ST depression (STD) among patients enrolled in the already completed Beta Blocker Heart Attack Trial.

Methods And Results: STD was determined by computer analysis of 24-hour ECG tapes as a change in ST level by +/- 0.1 mV or more from the median value of ST of all normally conducted complexes for greater than or equal to 1 minute.

Psychosocial influences on mortality after myocardial infarction.

Psychosocial interviews with 2320 male survivors of acute myocardial infarction, participants in the beta-Blocker Heart Attack Trial, permitted the definition of two variables strongly associated with an increased three-year mortality risk. With other important prognostic factors controlled for, the patients classified as being socially isolated and having a high degree of life stress had more than four times the risk of death of the men with low levels of both stress and isolation. An inverse association of education with mortality in this population reflected the gradient in the prevalence of the defined psychosocial characteristics.