[A method of rapid psychological diagnosis of patients with a history of myocardial infarction].

Abstract

The aim of the study was to develop a compact questionnaire for analysis of the psychological status of patients who had survived a myocardial infarction (MI) meant for physicians with no special psychology or psychiatry training. For this purpose of 185 questions selected by expert method on the data of 236 cases of MI using the program of stepped discriminant analysis, 37 most informative questions were chosen. These questions allowed determination of the general response to MI (adequate or neurotic) as well as of the degree of overestimation or negation of the disease and the degree of anxious-depressive syndrome. On the basis of the obtained data a method of psychologic express diagnosis (PED) for assessment of the named variables was developed. PED is aimed at wide practical use for psychological screening of patients who had survived a MI.