Active Coping Tasks Research Articles

Do laboratory tests of blood pressure reactivity predict blood pressure changes during everyday life?

This study was undertaken to examine whether blood pressure reactivity measured in the controlled setting of a laboratory could be correlated with blood pressure changes occurring during daily life. The subjects were 164 untreated hypertensives with mild hypertension, all of whom had a 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure recording, during which their activities were unrestricted. One hundred thirteen performed a treadmill exercise test, and 51 performed two active coping tasks (playing a video game or mental arithmetic). Blood pressure was monitored at baseline and during the tasks. Significant correlations were observed between the absolute levels of pressure measured during the laboratory tests and ambulatory monitoring, but these were higher for the active coping tasks (r = 0.53 to 0.75) than the exercise testing (r = 0.26 to 0.46) and were no higher for pressures measured during the tasks than at baseline. Correlations between the changes of blood pressure during the laboratory tasks and the changes occurring during ambulatory monitoring were analyzed in three ways, using simple, multiple, and canonical correlations. In no case were these correlations substantively significant. We conclude that blood pressure reactivity measured in the laboratory may not be readily generalized to changes of pressure in everyday life, as measured by noninvasive ambulatory recorders.

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as an index of parasympathetic cardiac control during active coping.

ABSTRACTPsychophysiological studies concerning tonic cardiac responses to stressor tasks have tended to emphasize beta‐adrenergic effects and to neglect parasympathetic influences and sympathetic‐parasympathetic interactions. Much recent evidence indicates that both within‐ and between‐individual variations in cardiac parasympathetic heart rate (HR) control can be easily and reliably assessed by measuring the magnitude of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Therefore, we used RSA to index cardiac vagal responses to two active coping tasks. Both tasks consisted of the same video game, in one condition with threat of shock for inferior performance, and in the other without such threat. Twenty subjects underwent both tasks (counterbalanced over subjects), plus a preceding resting baseline period. HR and RSA were continuously measured. Results suggested that cardiac parasympathetic activity was diminished from rest to task, contributing to heart rate responses. Exaggerated HR responses were also associated with extreme parasympathetic withdrawal. Furthermore, task condition X sequence of presentation interaction effects showed that threat of shock was particularly effective in elevating HR and reducing RSA when the threat was presented during the first task condition. A repeated‐measures analysis of covariance of HR, attempting to remove the effects of parasympathetic influences upon HR, suggested that sympathetic influences upon HR exceeded any reciprocal vagal effects during the threat condition for those subjects exposed to the threat task first. The findings indicate the importance of considering stress‐related parasympathetic effects upon HR as well as sympathetic‐vagal interactions.

Parental hypertension and cardiovascular response to stress in healthy young adults.

ABSTRACTOne indicator of elevated risk for subsequent development of essential hypertension is the presence of the disorder in either or both parents. Exaggerated cardiovascular responsivity to stress has also been suggested as a possible precursor to hypertension. This study examined the relationship between parental hypertension and the heart rate (HR), systolic (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) levels of 103 healthy college‐age men, during two resting conditions and stressful cold pressor and reaction time tasks. Sons of hypertensive parents (N = 25) showed higher HR and SBP than sons of normotensive parents (N = 78) during both rest and stress, but these differences were greatest during the stressful reaction time (RT) task. No reliable differences in DBP were seen. A subsample of 45 subjects, including 14 with hypertensive parents, were also monitored during a second stress, the cold pressor test; only trends toward HR or BP differences related to parental hypertension were seen for this stress, although HR and SBP differences during the RT task were still significant (p<.05) even in this smaller group. Since the incidence of high blood pressure is known to be greater among the offspring of hypertensive parents, these findings suggest that cardiovascular responses to certain types of stress (e.g., active coping tasks) may help predict future risk of hypertension.