Coronary-prone behavior among Japanese men.

The Japanese Coronary-prone Behavior Scale (JCBS) is a questionnaire developed by the Eastern Collaborative Group Study (ECGS), a multi-center study of coronary-prone behavior among Japanese men in Japan. From the JCBS, a subscale was extracted consisting of 9 items that were independently associated with the presence of coronary artery disease (CAD) in patients undergoing coronary angiography (CAG). The subscale, named Scale C, represents job-centered lifestyle, social dominance, and suppressed overt type A behavior. To further validate the association of Scale C with CAD among Japanese men, the present study examined if such an association would be observed in a newly sampled population. The JCBS was carried out by 311 men undergoing CAG. The association between Scale C score and the presence of CAD was evaluated with logistic regression analysis that included established coronary risk factors. The Scale C score was significantly higher in subjects with CAD than in those without and stepwise multivariate logistic regression showed that the Scale C score was associated with the presence of CAD independent of age, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, diabetes mellitus, and obesity. These results indicate that the Scale C score is independently associated with the presence of CAD even among a newly sampled population of Japanese men undergoing CAG. Scale C may reflect an important feature of coronary-prone behavior among Japanese men.