Group Therapy in the Outpatient Management of Post-Myocardial Infarction Patients

Abstract

A controlled experiment of the utility of group therapy as an adjunct to the medical outpatient management of patients following myocardial infarction has been in progress for nearly a year. The long-range purpose of the experiment is to assess the possible benefits of group therapy experience in terms of subjects' job rehabilitation rates, angina pectoris prevalence, nitroglycerin use, rehospitalization for coronary heart disease, as well as reinfarction and mortality rates-compared to those for control subjects. The early results from the group therapy experience, however, have provided important information and are reported here to illustrate the psychological physiology of the rehabilitation process and emphasize patients' special needs, too often ignored during their convalescence.