General Mental Health Status Scores of Patients with Atypical Chest Pain, a Case-Control Study

Psychological problems could have some relationship with undetermined chest pain. The aim of this study was to compare the general mental health status of out-patients with atypical chest pain with a reference age and sex matched controls.

Patients less than 40 years old, with atypical chest pain and low probability of ischemic heart disease were included in the study. The control group were age and sex matched. The Iranian translation of 28 item general health questionnaire (GHQ-28) was used to evaluate the mental status.

Totally 113 cases in each group completed the study. Mean age of the study group was 26.33± 5.77 years and 148 cases (65.5%) were female. Mean GHQ-28 score in the atypical chest pain and the control groups were 31.37±14.69 and 21.31±9.97 respectively (P<0.001). Abnormal GHQ-28 scores (≥24) was seen in 71(62.8%) of the atypical chest pain group and 38(33.6%) of the controls (odds ratio: 3.34, 95% confidence interval =1.93-5.76). Multivariate analysis showed that after adjustment for possible confounding factors, atypical chest pain was an independent predictor of abnormal GHQ-28 (odds ratio: 3.32, 95% confidence interval: 1.31-8.47).

The results of the present study, showed that our patients with atypical chest pain had worse general mental health state. It is not clear that worse general health state is a cause of atypical chest pain or an incidental concomitant finding.