Comforting the after-coronary patient.

A recent five-year study monitored the life stresses of patients with coronary heart disease. The patients were telephoned once a month, and attempts to reduce stress, when appropriate, resulted in significant reductions in mortality. The program's results suggest that the major therapeutic ingredients, over and above usual medical care, are providing patients with the sense of being `watched over', and giving those who are more distressed several extra hours of relatively unsophisticated psychotherapy or comforting. Brief, frequent, and perhaps even unsolicited contacts with the health care system over the first post-coronary year are important for all patients; lengthier, more relaxed sessions with the anxious and depressed are indicated.