Speech characteristics and coronary heart disease incidence in the multiple risk factor intervention trial.

To assess whether speech characteristics descriptive of Type A behavior were related to coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence in the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, we scored voice emphasis, speed of speaking, latency of answering, and answer content from 577 audiotaped structured interviews in a case-control design which included all 193 individuals who incurred CHD during the 7-year follow-up. These were matched with 384 CHD-free controls. Multivariate analyses showed that subjects' voice emphasis [relative risk ratio (RR) = 1.25, p = .02] and latency of answering (RR = .78, p = .02) were significantly associated with CHD incidence when controlled for baseline levels of diastolic blood pressure, serum cholesterol, and cigarette smoking.