Daily stress and social support among women with CAD : results from a 1-year randomized controlled stress management intervention study.

• BACKGROUND: Psychosocial stress may play a causative role in development and progression of coronary artery disease (CAD).PURPOSE: We investigated the effects of a 1-year stress management program on daily stress behavior and social support among female CAD patients.METHOD: Women, 247 (RESULTS: Daily stress scores for the intervention and control groups were at baseline 39.5 +/- 8.1 vs. 37.2 +/- 9.1 (p = 0.06), 10 weeks 37.2 +/- 8.0 vs. 35.5 +/- 9.4 (p = 0.20), 1-year 36.1 +/- 7.2 vs. 35.9 +/- 8.5 (p = 0.85), and at 1-2 year follow-up 34.0 +/- 7.8 vs. 35.3 +/- 8.7 (p = 0.32), respectively. Intention to treat analyses showed interaction between treatment and time [F(3,213) = 2.72; p = 0.01] reflecting that the decrease was more pronounced in the intervention group. There was no evidence for a difference in change concerning social support.CONCLUSION: CAD women in the intervention group had a more pronounced reduction of self-rated daily stress behavior over time compared to controls. However, as the intervention group had higher baseline values, due to regression toward the mean, we have no evidence that the difference in decrease of daily stress was due to the intervention.

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