Acute stressors of loss and coping in heart disease patients and people without disease

Abstract

Heart disease has been a health problem in our country and the world. On a recurring basis, this condition occupies the first places in mortality rates. Acute stressful life events and associated coping styles have been found to contribute to ischemic heart disease. The objective of this study was to know the differences between patients and non-patients in these experiences and the coping styles used. We worked with people diagnosed with ischemic heart disease and without disease (n = 150 for each group). Descriptive statistics (frequency analysis and contingency tables) were used, with which results were obtained that showed few differences between the groups regarding the type of acute stressors experienced; however, only a part of the participants (n = 71 patients) and (n = 44 non-patients) coincided in reporting those related to losses as the most acute stressors, classified as repairable or temporary and irreparable, with the irreparable being those that the patients lived longer and the non-patients lived longer. It is concluded that the differences in the study of these variables seem to lie in the cognitive assessment of a stressor as acute and loss (reparable or temporary and irreparable) with their coping styles; therefore, they are, in general terms, more adaptive in non-patients (positive reappraisal) than in patients (avoidance and distancing).