Prospective and retrospective psychological studies of coronary heart disease.

The Minnesota Multiphasic Persona'ity Inventory was administered at the first and fifth annual examinations of 1990 men studied in a prospective investigation of coronary heart disease. These data were used to investigate the following questions—two potential sources of error in retrospective studies: Do survivors of the illness differ, on the variables being investigated, from persons who die before they can be included in a retrospective study? Is occurrence of the illness associated with systematic changes in these variables among survivors? Both questions were answered affirmatively. The results indicate that investigation of relationships between variables of behavior or personality and the occurrence of symptomatic life-threatening disease should proceed by the prospective method.