Personality and return to work of the patient after ischemic heart disease

Abstract

Introduction

The return to work has been considered a public health problem and one of the main goals of cardiac rehabilitation, because it has economic benefits for society, in terms of the increased of productivity and the reduced of the costs, and also it improves the individual well-being and the economic security of the patients and their families.

Several medical, psychological and sociodemographic variables have been related to return to work after ischemic heart disease, being assigned a higher weight to socio-psychological variables.

Objective

To determine the prevalence of return to work and relate the influence of personality on the return to work of the patient after ischemic heart disease.

Methods

This analytical, correlational and cross-sectional study was conducted with 164 patients aged less than 65 years with a clinical diagnosis of ischemic heart disease, three to six months after hospital discharge. Data collection was performed through a self-administered questionnaire ((sociodemographic characterization, Graffar scale and Personality Inventory (Vaz-Serra, Ponciano and Freitas, 1980) in cardiology follow-up consultation. We used the discriminant analysis test through the SPSS program version 20.0 for Windows.

Results

Patients had an average age of 54,2±7,4 years; 81,7% were male; 96,3% were "married"; 41,5% belonged to Class III of Graffar scale.

The prevalence of return to work was 58,5%. The discriminant analysis by stepwise method permitted to obtain a final model that allows differentiation of the two groups. The neuroticism proved to be a predictor of return to work of the patient after ischemic heart disease.

Conclusions

The results are consistent with some national and international studies, confirming the relationship between personality and the return to work.

The return to work after a cardiac event is a multidimensional process that appears to be strongly influenced by psychosocial factors, including personality. Thus, by identifying the individual's personality traits, including thinking, feelings, behaviour, the way of acting daily, it would be possible to predict behaviours associated with the health and the disease process.