The psychological profiles of coronary and cancer patients, and of matched controls

Summary

The Cattell 16 PF questionnaire was administered to 40 coronary and 40 cancer patients, the subjects being matched for sex, age, domicile and socio-economic status. Both patient groups were compared with a group of 40 healthy subjects similarly matched. The Cattell scores of coronary and cancer groups tended to reproduce the high-anxiety type profile shown by a larger group of 230 male patients with coronary disease. No other psychological trait significantly distinquished either patient group from each other, nor from the healthy subjects.

Because the profiles of the coronary and cancer patients were similar, it is considered that the anxiety traits previously reported for 100 male and 80 female patients with coronary heart disease followed rather than preceded their heart attack.