Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Abstract
Background and objective: Coronary artery disease is the most common serious diseases in developing countries. It is predicted that by 2020, heart disease will kill 25 million people annually. Coronary artery disease is the leading cause of death in people over 35 years in Iran. Biological factors such as abnormal levels of certain fats in the blood, increase in bad cholesterol, increase in lipoprotein cholesterol, fluctuations in lipoprotein cholesterol levels of good cholesterol, hypertension, smoking, sedentary lifestyle, overweightness or obesity, increasing age, and family history of premature coronary heart disease make people susceptible to heart disease. Some psychological factors such as stress predispose people to coronary heart disease.  On top of it, basic schemata, too, predisposes people to coronary artery disease. The present study aimed to compare the stress coping strategies and early maladaptive schemas in patients with coronary artery disease and healthy individuals.
Methods: The population of the study was all patients with coronary artery disease and their relatives who were referred to the hospital martyr. Convenience sampling was used to recruit 60 participants from among the patients with coronary artery disease treated at martyr Beheshti Hospital and Diagnostic Center of light Nuclear Medicine Qom- Iran. Each participant was matched to a healthy person, who was visiting the same institutes, for age, gender, marital status and education. Inclusion criteria for this study were as follows: signing a consent to participate in research, being in the age range from 35 to 65 years, having studied up to at least a fifth-grade education level, not suffering from major psychiatric disorders, not taking psychiatric drugs and drugs to diagnose coronary artery disease by cardiologists for patients. The exclusion criteria included psychological disorder or a history of mental illness, history of lung disease, medication, drugs (based on self-reporting) and failure to sign the written consent to participate in research. The research instruments were 1) Lazarus Coping Strategies inventory, 2) Yang Maladaptive and 3) Goldberg General Health Inventory. The Data were analyzed through on way ANOVA.
Results: Patients with coronary artery disease were significantly different from the control group in the coping strategies factors: coping (P=0.002), problem solving (P<0.001)), early maladaptive schemas (emotional deprivation (P<0.001), abandonment (P<0.001), mistrust (P=0.008), vulnerability to disease (P<0.001) Undeveloped Self (P<0.001), sacrifice (P=0.006), emotional inhibition (P=0.024), and strict criteria (P<0.001).
Conclusion: Coronary artery disease is affected by problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies as well as early maladaptive schemas. Therefore, it is imperative that patients identify maladaptive coping styles and early maladaptive schemas.