Elsevier

Biological Psychology

Volume 79, Issue 3, December 2008, Pages 287-293
Biological Psychology

Cardiovascular activity during laboratory tasks in women with high and low worry

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2008.07.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Worry has been related to delayed stress recovery and cardiovascular disease risk. Cardiovascular responses to a range of laboratory tasks were examined in this study of high and low worriers. Undergraduate women were recruited with the Penn State Worry Questionnaire to form low (n = 19) and high (n = 22) worry groups. These individuals engaged in six laboratory tasks (orthostatic stress, supine rest, hand cold pressor, mental arithmetic, and worry and relaxation imagery) while heart rate (HR), HR spectral analysis, impedance cardiography, and blood pressure were acquired. The only significant group difference found was a consistently greater HR across tasks in high worriers (p < .05). No group by condition interactions emerged. High trait worry in healthy young women appears to be marked by elevated HR in the absence of autonomic abnormalities. These findings are discussed relative to the literature on worry, with particular reference to its health implications.

Section snippets

Subjects

Forty-one nonsmoking female college students (mean age = 19.7 years) were recruited for the laboratory study through the Virginia Tech Psychology Department's online subject recruitment system. Initially, 472 women completed the online version of the PSWQ. During this selection process, students were screened via a physical and mental health background form included with the PSWQ. One question included in this health form asked for the individual's greatest fear or cause of worry. Information was

Primary analyses

No significant group differences were initially found for any dependent variable. On further examination, it was clear that the group data were skewed on BMI, with more obese/overweight subjects in the low worry group and more anorexic/underweight subjects in the high worry group. Accordingly, this and all subsequent analyses were run with BMI group as a covariate.1

Discussion

The primary finding of this study was a consistent HR elevation in the high worry group when compared to the low worry group. HR was greater in high worriers across all conditions in the study. Moreover, the high worriers showed elevated HR shortly after arrival in the lab, prior to the onset of the experimental protocols (i.e., in the anticipatory baseline). These results are consistent with reported associations between elevated HR and worry in its various forms, such as GAD (Thayer et al.,

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Michelle Patriquin, Laura Tiffin, Chad Stephens, Jenna Carpenter, and Megan Moore for their assistance with various aspects of this project.

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  • Cited by (0)

    Portions of these data have been presented at the annual meetings of the American Psychosomatic Society, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Psychophysiological Research.

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