The Effect of Coping Therapy on Immunological Indicators in Patients with Coronary Heart Disease

The studies since the second half of the 20th century have revealed the effect of stress on the heart and vessels with mediating neurological indicators and techniques of dysfunctional coping techniques. They also have shown that stress management and the improvement of coping techniques improve the indicators. The present study examined the appraisal of the effect of coping-therapy on cortisol, Interleukin 6 (IL-6) and Interleukin 1β (IL-1β) in comparison with the control group. The study was a quasi-experimental research with pre-test and post-test design conducted on 44 patients (randomly assigned into two experimental and control groups) suffering from coronary heart disease who were hospitalized in Shahid Rajaei Heart Hospital in Tehran in 2011. The experimental group was treated with coping-therapy, and the immunological indicators of both groups were measured using ELISA at the beginning, the fourth, the eighth, (immediately after the end of treatment), the tenth, and the fourteenth weeks. The collected data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA by SPSS version 17. The gender and education of the sample was controlled statistically. The results revealed that coping-therapy could significantly decrease cortisol, IL-6, IL-1β from the eighth to the end of the fourteenth week (follow-up). Considering the cognitive limitations of the present study, one can conclude that coping-therapy may decrease the negative effects of stress on immunological indicators through improving dysfunctional techniques to effective ones, and in this way, reveal the positive effects on health.