Psychological factors and coronary artery disease

Quality-of-life measures as predictors of mortality and morbidity

Poor quality of life assessed singly, using an instrument designed to assess quality of life, or variously, using assessments of job stress, depression, anxiety, hostility, anger, or life events, seems to be predictive of poor cardiovascular health and attendant morbidity and mortality. Since risk factors appear to cluster together, new studies may benefit from concentrating on assessing quality of life and health in multivariate domains, including both psychological and behavioral aspects of life, and validating instruments for use as predictive tools in the future. However, single questions on energy also appear useful as predictors.