BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: In the medical world one of the most interaction between body and mind are related to coronary heart disease and it is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in the world. For this reason, identifying psychological risk factors in this context is necessary. In this regard, this study was performed with aimed to coping styles and quality of life in CHD patients and healthy individuals.

METHODS: This study was a cross-sectional performed on 100 patients with coronary heart disease and 100 healthy subjects. Data was collected through Lazarus and Folkman coping styles questionnaires that included four problematic coping and  four emotion-focused coping style and quality of life of the World Health Organization in four aspects of  physical, psychological, environmental and social relationship with demographic characteristics were collected and compared.

FINDINGS: The mean of direct confrontive coping style in patients (8.75±2.81) were significantly more than healthy individuals (7.95±2.86) (p=0.036), the mean of escape-avoidance coping style in patients (9.80±4.59) were significantly more than healthy individuals (8.38±4.25) (p=0.045), and was not found significant difference between two groups in Problem-focused coping style, Also there was a significant difference in quality of life between two groups, in the physical health domain (p=0.000), psychological domain(p=0.001), social relationship domain (p=0.007) and environmental domain (p=0.003).

CONCLUSION: Result showed that the quality of life in CHD patients were lower than healthy individuals and CHD patients used direct confrontive coping style and escape-avoidance coping style, more than healthy individuals. Therefore this two styles can be considered as risk factors for CHD.