HOSTILITY AND HEART DISEASE

Hostile men, but not women, are more than twice as likely to suffer from recurrent coronary heart disease (CHD). Researchers used data from the Nova Scotia Health Survey 1995 to identify participants with CHD at baseline, whose outcomes were compared against their hostility data (also taken from the same survey). The findings showed that high hostile men had a 54% CHD recurrence rate compared with 33% for their less hostile counterparts. For women no significant difference was observed however, with recurrence rates of 44% and 52% for high and low hostile respectively. The authors suggest that further studies are necessary to confirm their findings and to determine if hostile patients may benefit from hostility management. (

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ILLEGAL DRUG USE BURDEN

The emergency healthcare burden related to illegal drug use is substantial and higher than previously reported. An independent researcher was employed to prospectively and anonymously interview patients attending an inner city adult emergency department throughout all 168 hours of a typical week. The results showed that 6.9% of all patient attendances were directly or indirectly linked to illegal drug use, …