The prevalence and correlates of Rose Questionnaire angina among women and men in the Lipid Research Clinics Program Prevalence Study population

Abstract

The prevalence and correlates of Rose Questionnaire angina were investigated in a sample of 4,661 white woman and men aged 30 years and above who participated in the Lipid Research Clinics Program Prevalence Study 1972-1976. Among men, the prevalence of Rose angina increased with age from about 1% to 12%, while the prevalence among women ranged from about 3% to 6%. Young women compared with men also had a relatively high prevalence of dyspnea, which was strongly correlated with Rose angina in both sexes. For women and men younger than 50 years, the dyspnea-Rose angina odds ratio was about 6 (p less than 0.001), while older women and men had somewhat lower sand higher odds ratios, respectively. Major and minor resting electrocardiographic abnormalities and self-reported history of a heart attack were not significantly associated with Rose angina among young participants of either sex, but they did show positive associations among older participants with the exception of minor electrocardiographic abnormalities in men. A logistic regression analysis revealed a strong inverse association between high density lipoprotein cholesterol and Rose angina in both sexes. Because mortality studies consistently show an excess of coronary heart disease death among young men compared with women, the female excess of Rose angina at young ages suggests that the grouping of angina and myocardial infarction into a single endpoint in cardiovascular disease studies may be more appropriate for young men than for young women.