Showing papers by "Kimberly A Brownley published in 1996"

Social support and hostility interact to influence clinic, work, and home blood pressure in black and white men and women.

Abstract: The effects of hostility and social support on clinic, work, and home systolic (SBP) and diastolic (DBP) blood pressures were evaluated in 129 healthy adults. High hostility was related to higher SBP and DBP in Whites; low hostility was related to higher SBP and DBP in Blacks. These relationships were significant for men at home and at work and for women at screening. The relationship between low hostility and higher BP in Blacks was largely due to Black men who reported low hostility plus high anger-in (suggesting suppressed hostility). In contrast, high hostile Black men with high tangible support tended to exhibit lower BP than all other Black men. In White women, high belonging support was related to lower BP, independent of hostility, and low tangible support plus high hostility was related to higher clinic BP. In high hostile subjects, regardless of ethnicity or gender, high appraisal support was related to lower overall BP. These data suggest that the adverse BP effects of hostility and the beneficial effects of social support interact in a complex manner, reflecting contextual, ethnic, and gender specificities.

The ability of active versus passive coping tasks to predict future blood pressure levels in normotensive men and women.

Abstract: Casual blood pressure (BP) after a 2-year follow-up interval was determined in 40 normotensive men and women (20 Blacks and 20 Whites), who had been initially tested for cardiovascular responses to a variety of active and passive coping tasks, including active speech, passive speech, reaction time, and forehead cold pressor tasks. Stepwise multiple regression analyses were used to identify the best model for predicting follow-up BP. Average systolic blood pressure (SBP) level during cold pressor stress was the single most powerful predictor of casual SBP over 2 years, even after controlling for initial resting SBP. Other predictors of follow-up SBP were initial SBP, parental history of hypertension, and heart rate and SBP during passive speech (final model R 2 = .78). For follow-up diastolic blood pressure (DBP), the only significant predictors were initial DBP and male gender. These results contribute to a growing body of literature that suggests that cardiovascular measures observed during stressors have predictive validity above and beyond that of traditional predictor variables.