Abstract
M.A.
It is a well-known fact that South Africans of all races are a high risk
population for the development of coronary heart disease and hypertension .
More recent statistics indicate that cardiovascular disease caused 12 % of
deaths amongst black South Africans in 1994 (Webster, 1996).
Risk factors for CHI) can be grouped into four domains : Biomedical (e.g.
hypertension, family history), behavioural (e.g. substance intake),
sociodemographic (e.g. socio - economic status) and personality (e.g. Type
A Behaviour). While there is a general agreement on many of the risk
factors for CHIC, there are many more which are still being debated such as
the influence of offspring parental heart disease and hypertension and
coronary - prone behaviour.
In a developing country, such as South Africa, with its heterogeneous
population, it seemed that cardiovascular diseases are assuming
epidemiological proportions among both White and Black South Africans,
and thus appears necessary to establish whether Black patients with
cardiovascular disease exhibits the TABP, closely related with diseases of
the cardiovascular system among Whites. Els (1987) noted that stress associated with lifestyle changes in Black
urbanisation in South Africa, not only showed psychological markers of
CHD, but also physiological markers, such as substance intake.
A cohort of 67 Black South African university students (38 male & 29
female), with a mean age of 23 was selected. The experimental groups
being children of parents with hypertension and heart disease and the controls
being children of normotensive parents and without a history of heart disease.
A battery of tests were used to measure TAB, depression, hostility, anger
and substance consumption. Results indicated that the experimental groups
showed a significantly higher index of Type A Behaviour (p < 0, 01) than
the controls and there was a significant correlation in terms of Parental
hypertension and parental heart disease with coronary - prone behaviour
(anger, hostility and depression) as well as substance consumption.