Laboratory reactivity models as predictors of ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate

• Published in: Journal of psychosomatic research Vol. 38; no. 3; pp. 217 - 228
• Main Authors: Linden, Wolfgang, Con, Andrea
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Amsterdam Elsevier Inc 01.04.1994; New York, NY Elsevier
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; ambulatory blood pressure; Behavioral psychophysiology; Biological and medical sciences; Blood Pressure; Blood Pressure Determination - instrumentation; Female; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; Heart Rate; Humans; Laboratories; Laboratory reactivity; laboratory resting values; Male; Methods; Monitoring, Physiologic; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychology. Psychophysiology; Sex Factors; Stress, Psychological; Task Performance and Analysis; laboratory resting values; heart rate; ambulatory blood pressure; Laboratory reactivity; Human; Heart rate; Laboratory study; Locomotion; Reactivity; Methodology; Induction; Blood pressure; Hemodynamics; Measurement method; Stress
• ISSN: 0022-3999; 1879-1360
• DOI: 10.1016/0022-3999(94)90117-1

We attempted to validate the usefulness of the laboratory reactivity paradigm by examining responses to three distinct lab tasks and an overall lab average as predictors for ambulatory blood pressure. Subjects were 126 university students. We assessed ambulatory blood pressure, heart rate and perceived distress during an 8-hr working day. In the lab, all subjects responded to three standardized 5-min tasks: isometric handgrip, mental arithmetic, and a structured discussion of a recent interpersonal conflict situation. The analyses used absolute task levels, change scores, a composite index of reactivity, and a mean value for all obtained lab measures. Task levels correlated significantly with means of the ambulatory cardiovascular indices; the scores ranged from 0.35 to 0.49 for SBP, from 0.45 to 0.58 for DBP, and from 0.57 to 0.65 for HR. Only the DBP change score associated with the discussion task correlated with the ambulatory mean. The correlations between lab task levels and ambulatory measures were strongest for the discussion task and the composite score; the task level for the math task was consistently the weakest predictor of ambulatory activity. When lab resting values were forced into a step-wise multiple regression as step one, only the response to the discussion added significantly (3% each for SBP and DBP) to the variance in ambulatory pressure that was not already explained by resting values. The overall lab mean for SBP was a better predictor of the ambulatory mean than was any combination of resting values and reactivity indices.