Type A Personality & Coronary Artery Disease: A Case Control Study -

Background and objective: Cardiovascular diseases are becoming the major cause of morbidity and mortality in most of the developing countries including India. Various studies proposed that type A personality is an independent risk factor for coronary artery disease. Present study was carried out to study the role of type A personality in the occurrence of coronary artery disease. Materials and Methods: Present study was a hospital based paired matched case-control study, carried out at civil hospital, Ahmedabad. 135 newly diagnosed cases of coronary artery disease and 135 controls were studied after taking informed written consent. Data was analysed by using Epi-info version 3.5.1 computer package, Chi -square test, and Odds ratio were calculated. Results: Among the total 135 cases 70.4% were male and 29.6% were female, most of the cases (40%) were belongs to the age group of 51-60 years. In our study significantly higher number of the cases (28.9%) having Type A personality as compared to controls (12.6%), and this difference was statistically significant (X2= 10.90, P < 0.001). Conclusion: findings of our study suggest that type A personality is major etiology behind the occurrence of coronary artery disease. Awareness should be created among the people regarding type A behavior and also promote various stress management techniques like breathing exercises, stretching exercises, yoga, meditation which are quite helpful in reducing the risk of CAD.