Introduction and Overview

Abstract

Few of us would question that depression often accompanies or follows the experience of coronary artery disease; in fact, this depression has been well documented by numerous research studies (Crisp, DeSouza, & Queenan, 1981; Katon, 1982; Speedling, 1982). Those who experience a heart attack and recover continue to worryabout the possibility of an other activities and alteration of life-style. The advent of coronary bypass surgery has been viewed by some as meaning an end to the physical and psychological impact of an earlier heart attack or the limitation of activity resulting from living with chronic angina. Since its inception in the 1960s, it has gained in popularity until now over 150,000 coronary bypass operations are performed each year in America; countless others take place in other countries of the industrialized world. Coronary bypass surgery, by alleviating the disabling pain of angina, has held out to heart patients a promise of a normal life, and this implies a life without the psychological handicap of depression.