The objectives are to improve the assessment of psychosocial risk factors for coronary heart disease, including Type A behavior, hostility, and self-involvement. The specific aims are: 1) to describe and compare interviewer stylistics of two prospective epidemiological studies, the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT) and Western Collaborative Group Study (WCCS) Structured Interviews, 2) to assess whether there are interviewer differences in the predictiveness of Type A behavior and its components for CHD incidence in the MRFIT and WCGS, and 3) if so, to assess whether these interviewer differences in CHD predictiveness are related to interviewer stylistics. The aims are being achieved by auditing and analyzing detailed interviewer speech characteristics from the WCGS and the MRFIT. The audits are being conducted on tape-recorded Structured Interviews on all CHD cases, and each CHD case is matched with CHD-free control subjects, totalling 750 from the WCGS and 577 from the MRFIT. Each speech characteristic has been scored with high reliability, and the sample sizes are adequate for the analyses. Appropriate multiple logistic regression analyses are being used to control for standard risk factors. The significance of the study will allow us to assess whether the SI interviewing style has changed substantially from the WCGS to the MRFIT, and if so, whether these changes may have reduced the predictive validity of behavior type judgments.
NIH ExPorter
NIH ExPorter