Abstract
A battery of self-report inventories was administered to patients who had just sustained a myocardial infarction (MI). It included the Millon Behavioral Health Inventory, a Patient Questionnaire designed by the researcher, and the Caine and Foulds Hostility and Direction of Hostility Questionnaire. Three months post-MI, cardiologists completed a Physician Questionnaire rating the patients on physical and psychological factors.The sample consisted of 40 patients, both male and female, who ranged in age from 37 through 75. The patients came from two hospital settings, one in Florida and one in New York. The sample consisted of five personality groups acording to the MBHI: Dependent-Conforming, Confident-Outgoing, Anxious-Moody, Angry-Irritable, and Friendly-Agreeable. Statistical considerations allowed the distribution to be collapsed into the Dependent-Agreeable, Confident-Outgoing, and the Anxious-Irritable groups.Patients in the Anxious-Irritable personality group have the highest mean scores on the MBHI Psychogenic Attitudes of Premorbid Pessimism, Future Despair, Social Alienation, Chronic Tension, and Somatic Anxiety. Patients in the Anxious-Irritable group have the highest mean scores on Cardiovascular Tendency, Life-Threat Reactivity, and Emotional Vulnerability. These patients also have the highest mean scores on level of hostility and the components of hostility: Acting Out, Critical of Others, Paranoid Hostility, Self-Criticism, and Guilt.Patients in the Anxious-Irritable group take a greater average amount of time to seek medical attention immediately after experiencing symptoms of an MI than do the patients in the other personality groups. There is more dissatisfaction both with the medical profession in general and with present medical care received among patients in the Anxious-Irritable group.Overall stress was the only variable in which the patients in the Anxious-Irritable group do not score the highest. The most overall stress is endorsed by the patients in the Confident-Outgoing personality group.Patients in the Anxious-Irritable group are assessed by their cardiologists three months post-MI to be recuperating slower than are patients in the other groups. Patients in the Anxious-Irritable group modify fewer destructive lifestyle behaviors than do patients in the other groups. These patients also are judged by their cardiologists to be evidencing more depression and anxiety three months into the recuperative period than are patients in the other groups.