Perceived health problems in subjects with varying cardiovascular diagnoses.

To study perceived health problems in subjects with differing cardiovascular status, the Nottingham Health Profile (NHP) was administered to 210 subjects 55 years of age and over. Subjects were categorized as being cardiovascular "Normals," being hypertensive, having isolated coronary artery disease, or both being hypertensive and having coronary artery disease. An analysis of variance between the four cardiovascular strata on each of the six subscales of the NHP yielded significant differences between the groups on the subscales Pain, Physical Mobility, Energy, and Social Isolation. Subsequent conservative post hoc analyses of the group means on each of these variables indicated that the group with isolated coronary artery disease differed significantly from both the hypertensives and the Normals in Physical Mobility. For the Pain subscale the subjects with isolated coronary artery disease differed significantly from those with hypertension. There were no differences among the four cardiovascular groups in perceived health problems on the subscales Emotional Reactions and Sleep.