Optimism, cynical hostility, and incident coronary heart disease and mortality in the Women's Health Initiative.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Trait optimism (positive future expectations) and cynical, hostile attitudes toward others have not been studied together in relation to incident coronary heart disease (CHD) and mortality in postmenopausal women.

Methods and results

Participants were 97 253 women (89 259 white, 7994 black) from the Women's Health Initiative who were free of cancer and cardiovascular disease at study entry. Optimism was assessed by the Life Orientation Test-Revised and cynical hostility by the cynicism subscale of the Cook Medley Questionnaire. Cox proportional hazard models produced adjusted hazard ratios (AHRs) for incident CHD (myocardial infarction, angina, percutaneous coronary angioplasty, or coronary artery bypass surgery) and total mortality (CHD, cardiovascular disease, o

SUBMITTER: Tindle HA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2901870 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature