Coronary Heart Disease, Gender Issues and Rehabilitation

Coronary heart disease (CHD) affects quality of life not only for patients but also for their spouses. Research indicates that patients’ recovery from a cardiac event is dependent upon support from the family, especially from a spouse. Therefore, the quality of a couple’s relationship, including sexual activity, is an important factor to take into account in the evaluation of patients. However, to date, this issue has not been adequately addressed, particularly for women. Female CHD patients have higher survival rates than male CHD patients after accounting for baseline severity; however, females seem to have more symptoms and a poorer quality of life than males. Women also have lower quality of life scores than men in the background population. The gender differences in symptom and functional perceptions may influence the quality of relationship. Also, given that spouses have a central role in the patient’s recovery, surprisingly little research has been undertaken to determine whether spouses perceive their CHD partners’ recovery in the same way as do the patients, especially in the areas of physical functioning and self-efficacy. This symposium will firstly discuss differences in issues related to sexual functioning, self-efficacy, quality of life, and survival rates following a cardiac event, from the perspective of male and female patients, and spouses of patients. This will be followed by discussion concerning the importance of identifying gender differences after a cardiac event in order to address these differences in a comprehensive rehabilitation and secondary prevention program.