Background Few studies have focused on risk factors in
women's lives concerning psychosocial factors and coronary heart
disease (CHD). The present study is one of a series in which a wide range of
psychosocial factors will be analysed with a focus on women. Women and men have
been compared with respect to sensitivity to psychosocial risk factors regarding
CHD. The importance of psychosocial risk factors for women, compared with
biomedical risk factors has also been studied.
Methods A questionnaire (The Stress Profile) was answered by 538
rehabilitation participants (97 women, 441 men) and a reference group (5308
women, 5177 men), aged 40-65 years. Psychosocial factors were investigated using
means and b-coefficients. Comparisons between psychosocial and biomedical risk
factors were made, with respect to the product of the β-coefficient
and the standard deviation for each compared risk factor.
Results Significant differences appeared concerning five areas: Work
content, workload and control, physical stress reactions, emotional stress
reactions and burnout. All showed that the relative sensitivity was larger for
women than for men. Predictive psychosocial risk factors for women with respect
to CHD were physical stress reactions, emotional stress reactions, burnout,
family relationships and daily hassles/satisfactions, and they were on
approximately the same level as biomedical risk factors.
Conclusions Women appear to be more sensitive than men with respect
to psychosocial risk factors for CHD, and the predictive ability of psychosocial
risk factors shows great importance. Actions against unhealthy psychosocial
conditions are recommended. Both presumptive CHD patients and others might
benefit from preventive actions, and since women are more sensitive they will
probably gain more than men.
Conclusions. This study shows that women appear to be more sensitive
than men with respect to psychosocial risk factors for CHD containing work
content, workload and control, physical and emotional stress reactions and
burnout. Our data also show a pattern, which could indicate that women
experience more psychosocial pressure than men. When comparing predictive
ability of psychosocial risk factors versus some traditional risk variables for
CHD we could show the importance of such factors. Actions against unhealthy
psychosocial conditions, especially in the work environment, are recommended for
several reasons. Both presumptive CHD patients and others might benefit from
such preventive actions, and since women are more sensitive they will probably
gain more than men.
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