An Identical Twin Study of Psychosocial Factors in Coronary Heart Disease in Sweden

Abstract

Thirty-two pairs of Swedish identical male twins, 42-67 years old, who were discordant for coronary heart disease (CHD), were analyzed for variability in subjects' psychosocial patterns regarding their work, lack of leisure, home problems and life dissatisfactions. Subjects' psychosocial scores for all these four categories significantly differentiated those subjects who had had previous infarction from their less CHD afflicted brother. Subjects' four psychosocial categories consistently demonstrated the hypothesized relationship to their CHD severity; the life dissatisfactions category provided highest (significant) correlation with CHD severity. In contrast, correlations run between subjects' various medical history and physical examination data (smoking, obesity, cholesterol and so forth) and their CHD severity was inconsistent and of low orders (insignificant) of magnitude.