Components of hostility and the severity of coronary artery disease.

Previous research has linked various measures of hostility to the prevalence and incidence of coronary heart disease (CHD). The present study sought to determine whether some dimensions of hostility are differentially related to angiographically documented severity of coronary artery disease (CAD). Specifically, a hostility measure that correlates with indices of neuroticism was compared with a hostility measure unrelated to neurotic tendencies. For patients 60 years and younger, results were significant, revealing that neurotic hostility was inversely associated with severity of CAD whereas nonneurotic hostility scores were positively related to extent of disease. Overall hostility scores derived from the combination of the two kinds of hostility measures were unrelated to CAD severity. Results suggest that the multidimensional nature of the hostility construct should be appreciated in attempts to associate measures of hostility with manifestations of CHD.