Sense of coherence as a mediator between hostility and health-related quality of life among coronary heart disease patients

Objectives: To explore the association between hostility and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) among coronary heart disease (CHD) patients, and whether these associations are mediated by sense of coherence (SOC).

Background: Intervention research has shown that a decrease in levels of hostility leads to an increase of HRQoL among individuals with CHD. However, the mechanisms that link hostility and HRQoL in CHD patients are not clear.

Methods: 509 CHD patients (mean age 58.8 +/- 7.3, 29.3% female) were examined.

Results: Hostility was associated with poorer mental HRQoL. Adding SOC to the model weakened the strength of the association between hostility and mental HRQoL. The effect of hostility on mental HRQoL was explained for 61.9% by SOC. Neither hostility nor SOC was associated with physical HRQoL.

Conclusions: Our findings indicate that low SOC may partially explain the adverse effect of hostility on low mental HRQoL in CHD patients. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.