Background. Coronary heart disease (CHD) is a leading cause of disabilities and death. CHD is known to be a multifactorial disease and in the process of complex research, it is important to take into account the role of psychological factors. The presence of gender specificities in the formation and course of cardiovascular diseases determines the need to study the psychological characteristics of men and women with CHD in order to plan and develop prevention and rehabilitation programs.

Objective. The present research is aimed at studying the psychological features in men and women with CHD before coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) at the stage of preoperative care: 1) the study of asthenic condition in patients with CHD (men and women) during inpatient treatment before CABG; 2) the study of the severity and structure of anxiety in patients with CHD (men and women) before CABG; 3) the study of psychopathological symptoms including depressive manifestations in patients (men and women) before CABG; 4) the study of personality peculiarities in patients with CHD before CABG.

Design. In the course of the present study 60 patients with CHD before CABG were surveyed with a gender distribution of 30 women and 30 men. The study was carried out on the basis of Almazov National Medical Research Centre of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation (St. Petersburg, Russia). The average age of patients was 60.9 ± 7.6. The study included the clinical interview and the following methods of psychological testing were used: Asthenic State Scale, Integrative Test of Anxiety (ITT), Symptom Check List-90-Revised, and The Big Five Personality Test.

Results. In women with CHD before CABG, the higher level of asthenia and anxiety (both state and trait) was found as compared with men. Also in women in comparison with male patients higher rates of such manifestations in the structure of their psychological features as “somatization”, “interpersonal sensitivity”, “depression”, “phobic anxiety” were noted. According to the results of the study of personality peculiarities, it was found that among men with CHD the indicator of emotional stability is higher than in women.

Conclusion. It is necessary to take into account the possible variants of a sensitive emotional response which may be more common in women at the stage of impatient treatment before CABG (including such manifestations as anxiety, low mood, emotional sensitivity, asthenia). In accordance with this, during psychocorrectional work, it is important to apply techniques aimed at working with those emotional-negative experiences that may worsen noticeably in connection with the upcoming surgical intervention.

Background. Among the most important factors of success in sports there are self-regulation skills of that are formed through goal-attainment. In the context of achieving high sports results, the concept of achieving the goal of J. Nicholls deserves special attention (Nicholls, 1984). According to the research, the goals of athletes can predict their emotional state and the likelihood of anxiety in the upcoming competition.

The Objective is to reveal the connection between the state of pre-competitive anxiety and the goal-setting features as a way of self-regulation in curling athletes. In accordance with the researcher conclusions of the specifics of goal orientation, we assume that athletes with an ego goal orientation are characterized by a higher precompetitive anxiety compared to athletes with a task goal orientation.

Design. The article analyzes the types of target orientations and the state of anxiety in 56 curling athletes in the pre-competition period (m = 16, f = 40). The study used the following methods: Spielberger’s anxiety scale and R. Martens’ personal competitive anxiety scale with both methods in adaptation of Yu.Hanin, author’s questionnaire to establish the focus of the curler athletes’ goals.

Results. The assumption that athletes with an ego goal orientation are characterized by a higher precompetitive anxiety compared to athletes with a task goal orientation did not receive confirmation, which contradicts the results of studies performed by other specialists. The lack of connection between precompetitive anxiety and the orientation of the goals in athletes is probably determined by the specifics of curling as a team sport. It was established that men and women do not have significant differences in adherence to one or another orientation of goals (p> 0.05), however, significant gender differences were found in terms of personal and competitive anxiety (p≤0.01; p <0.05).

Conclusions. The performed work allowed us to identify new areas for further research, such as: the role of the coach in the target-setting for athletes; the study of factors that influenced the results.

The paper is an attempt to present a new approach to anxiety research, namely to describe social psychological determinants of anxiety in adolescents, and also to present teachers’, parents’ and students’ views on “anxiety-causing” situations in adolescents are compared.

The article presents a brief description of the main concepts related to the subject of anxiety: the interpretation of the phenomenon of anxiety, differences between the concepts of anxiety and fear, causes described by various authors. The author also pays attention to various types of anxiety: situational vs personal, adequate vs inadequate anxiety, anxiety in various fields of human life, and in particular at school.

The paper describes the results of the empirical study devoted to the communicative situations in which adolescents experience anxiety and the estimation of these situations by teachers and parents are presented.

The research is qualitative and consisted of several stages: focused interviews with teachers and then with the adolescents’ parents, focus groups of adolescents (the questionnaire is presented in respective part of the article). The study involved 6 teachers, 6 parents, 15 adolescents aged from 12 to 14 years. Based on the research results the set of situations that cause anxiety in adolescents is identified and the perception of these situations by parents and teachers is analyzed. The article also presents the similarities and differences of the perception of adolescents’ communicative anxiety in the three categories of respondents.

The results of the study show that the interactional situations causing anxiety among adolescents primarily involve social estimation of an adolescent both by peers and adults.