Psychosocial Forces

Abstract

DR. GROEN: Mr. Chairman, when we come to think about the problem of how to study the possible influence of socalled psychosocial factors in the etiology of coronary heart disease we are often confronted with the objection that since it is impossible to quantitate such factors such studies should not even be started. I acknowledge that the methodological problems in this area are enormous. Nevertheless, I would like to tell you in a few words how we have tried at least to overcome them. During our epidemiology studies we collected information about the people not only as far as their serum cholesterol is concerned, their diet, caloric expenditure and their electrocardiograms but we also subjected them to a number of questionnaires which had been designed and validated for us by social psychologists and sociologists. We simply added the questionnaires to a broad epidemiological investigation.