Background & aim: Different psychological factors may have a negative effect on our physical health and may also cause or exacerbate various diseases such as heart disease. The purpose of the present study was to compare stress, emotional suppression, rumination and anxiety in two groups of patients with coronary artery disease and healthy subjects.

Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out on 38 men. 19 male patients with coronary artery disease who were referred to Tehran Rajaie Shahid Heart Center in 2014. Moreover, 19 healthy men were selected using Targeted and peer-oriented methods. The tools of this research include the "beliefs about emotions", "worry", "rumination" and "perceived stress". Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation), t-test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov and multivariate analysis of variance.

Results: The results of t-test showed that the two groups of patients and non-patients are similar in terms of age and level of education and were not different. The results of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test displayed that the assumption was that the data were normal and a parametric test can be used. The results of multivariate analysis of variance showed that the patients were not significantly different in terms of perceived stress (p = 0.15), however, the two groups considered the variables of emotional suppression (p = 0.05), rumination (0.05) = p) and worry (p = 0.001). Also, the results of Mbox test and Loon test, homogeneity of covariance and variance for multi-variable variance analysis were confirmed.

Conclusion: The findings of the research indicate that healthy group and coronary artery disease patient experience an equal level of stress, but the patients experience worry, rumination and emotional suppression more than healthy control group. The results Indicate that the high level of emotional suppression in the patient group may lead to increased rumination and mental worry and mental continuity of stress and, consequently, adversely affects the health worsens the condition of illness over time.