Yonago Acta medica 2002;45:43–47
Stress Tolerance in Subjects with Myocardial Infarction
Kimiko Hiramatsu, Junko Nagasawa, Yuka Hirai, Sumiko Iyama, Rumiko Nagami, Keiko Kurashiki, Miyoko Matsuo and Tadasu Ikeda
Department of Adult and Geriatric Nursing, School of Health Science, Tottori University, Yonago 683-8503 Japan
In our course of surveys to study the relationship between stress and myocardial infarction (MI), we have investigated whether stress tolerance may play a significant role when MI develops. To elucidate the possible role of stress tolerance, we examined 96 patients with MI (68 men and 28 women, age 40-90 years) with a stress tolerance check list in which stress tolerance was quantified as total points for 20 self-evaluated items, each scored between 1 and 4 points. Their scores were compared with control values obtained from persons not suffering from MI, and further analyzed by dividing them into 3 groups according to their grade of stress tolerance; that is, low (39 or less in score), moderate (40-49) and high (50-80). The mean stress tolerance score (± SD) was significantly lower in the 96 MI patients (49.5 ± 8.90 points) than in the controls (60.8 ± 7.3 points). The stress tolerance grade was low in 13 of the 96 (13.5%), moderate in 34 (35.5%) and high in 49 (51.0%). In MI patients, lowly or moderately stress-tolerant persons were significantly higher in percentage (49.0%) than in the controls (6.3%). These results clearly indicate that low stress tolerance is a risk factor in the development of MI.
Key words: myocardial infarction; stress tolerance; stress tolerance check list
