Gender differences in psychological risk factors for development of heart disease

Abstract

While coronary heart disease (CHD) for decades was understood as mainly a male disease group, it has through the last years become increasingly evident that it is now an important disease causing premature death also in the female populations throughout the Westernized world. The present paper scrutinizes via literature searches and discussions of relevant data the sex and gender differences in psychological risk factors for CHD with an emphasis on female risk. It is concluded that the risk factor picture in females is, due to limited research, still far from clear, even if there are indications of sex differences in both the risk factors picture and the trajectories of the disease development.