Attitude of men aged 45-59 years to health and disease prevention (preventive study in Kaunas).

2,630 men aged 45-59 years--participants in the international Kaunas-Rotterdam Study programme, were interviewed at home by using a questionnaire ascertaining their attitude towards health and preventive measures. The survey showed the existence of a certain discrepancy between the attitude towards health as a human value, and care for the preservation of health. It was also found that a positive attitude towards health and medicine has a favourable influence on the realization of preventive measures within the framework of the fight against ischaemic heart disease.

Psychological influence of preventive measures in the realization of the program of ischaemic heart disease prevention.

In carrying out the programme of ischaemic heart disease prevention among the male population of Kaunas aged 45 to 59 years, in the course of two years the possible adverse influence of certain preventive measures (information about the given disease) on the attitude of the examined subjects to their state of health was investigated. A certain influence was found only in IHD patients, whereas no such influence was observed in healthy persons and in subjects with borderline values of HD risk factors.

[Use of a biographical questionnaire for studying the social and psychological characteristics of myocardial infarct patients]. / Primenenie biograficheskogo voprosnika dlia issledovaniia sotsial'nykh i psikhologicheskikh osobennostei bol'nykh infarktom miokarda.

An original formalized and standardized biographical questionnaire revealed higher activity and emotional tension in persons with myocardial infarction in the subacute period than in patients of a control group. A formalized and standardized biographical questionnaire is a reliable method for investigating the social and psychological peculiarities in applying measures of rehabilitation and primary and secondary prophylaxis in patients suffering from ischemic heart disease.