Abstract

Psychological data from 560 male survivors of acute myocardial infarction (AMI) were documented in the third week after onset of AMI. The psychodiagnostic assessment was designed to detect different forms of depression as well as hyperactive behaviour. A complete follow-up of these patients, which covers a period of 6 months, is available. Our findings indicate that affective disorders play an important role in the post-acute phase after AMI although the extent of myocardial infarction (as defined by an ECG score) and behaviour responses are not significantly related to one another. Different subforms of depression are not influenced by a history of angina pectoris, the degree and location of myocardial infarction, the occurrence of late potentials and age, whereas dyspnoea (P less than 0.001) and the recurrence of myocardial infarction (P less than 0.001) favour depressive mood states. Twelve cardiac deaths and 17 arrhythmic events occurred during the study period; they were significantly predicted by severe forms of post-AMI depression as revealed by univariate analysis. The evidence was stronger for predicting cardiac death (P less than 0.001) than for arrhythmic events (P = less than 0.035). The effect remains of borderline significance for cardiac death if all risk factors with a significant univariate influence are included in a multiple logistic regression model. The effect of depression is illustrated by Kaplan-Meier survival curves separated for patient groups with high as compared to low degrees of depression. Hyperactivity showed no impact on patient survival.