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Psychological Factors Affecting Ambulatory Blood Pressure in a High-Stress Occupation

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Clinical Applied Psychophysiology

Abstract

Since the first recording of indirect and direct ambulatory blood pressure (BP) in human subjects (Bevan, Honour, & Stott, 1969; Hinman, Engel, & Bickford, 1962), the advantages of recording BP in natural settings have become firmly established. Compared to BP values obtained in a doctor’s office or clinic, 24-hr ambulatory BP measurements are less likely to give inflated estimates of an individual’s BP (Burstyn, O’Donovan, & Charlton, 1981; Floras, Jones, Hassan, Osikowska, Sever, & Sleight, 1981; Mancia, 1990); they also offer a more precise means of evaluating the efficacy of antihypertensive medications (Des Combes, Porchet, Waeber, & Brunner, 1984; Rion, Waeber, Graf, Jaussi, Porchet, & Brunner, 1985) and provide a better predictor of the development of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality (Cheung & Weber, 1988; Harshfield, Pickering, Kleinert, Blank, & Laragh, 1982; Pessina, Palatini, Di Marco, Mormino, Fazio, Libardoni, Mos, Casiglia, & Dal, 1986). These advantages derive from the fact that the 50–100 readings typically obtained in a single 24-hr ambulatory recording yield a considerably more stable mean level of BP compared to the two or three readings obtained in an office examination. The multiple readings also offer a good means of estimating BP variability in the individual, another significant correlate of target-organ damage (Parati, Pomidossi, Albini, Malaspina, & Manda, 1987).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, 90024, USA

    David Shapiro & Iris B. Goldstein

  2. University of California, Irvine, CA, 92717, USA

    Larry Jamner

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  1. David Shapiro
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  2. Iris B. Goldstein
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  3. Larry Jamner
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

    John G. Carlson

  2. Behavioral Institute of Altanta, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    A. Ronald Seifert

  3. Department of Clinical and Physiological Psychology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany

    Niels Birbaumer

  4. Department of General Psychology, Universitá degli Studi, Padova, Italy

    Niels Birbaumer

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Shapiro, D., Goldstein, I.B., Jamner, L. (1994). Psychological Factors Affecting Ambulatory Blood Pressure in a High-Stress Occupation. In: Carlson, J.G., Seifert, A.R., Birbaumer, N. (eds) Clinical Applied Psychophysiology. The Plenum Series in Behavioral Psychophysiology and Medicine. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9703-9_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9703-9_6

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