The dispositional tendency to experience negative emotions may underlie correlated psychological risk factors for coronary heart disease (CHD). Here, we examined the relative contribution of variance shared by depression, anxiety, and anger (i.e. negative affect) and the variance unique to each negative affective disposition in predicting cardiac autonomic function as indexed by heart rate variability (HRV). The sample included 653 community volunteers (51.0% female; 15.8% Black) ages 30-54 (M= 43.8 + 7.1). Latent constructs of depression, anxiety, and anger were each measured by three scales from well-validated self-report questionnaires. Indices of HRV were derived from a 5-minute segment of continuous ECG recording and included high frequency (HF-HRV), low frequency (LF-HRV), and the ratio of LF to HF (LF:HF-HRV) power components. Factor analysis/multiple regression and structural equation modeling analyses were employed with covariate-adjustment for age, sex, race, education, BMI, smoking status, SBP, and DBP. At the single-trait level of analysis, examination of depression, anxiety, and anger individually showed depression to predict reduced HF-HRV and LF-HRV and increased LF:HF-HRV, anxiety to predict reduced HF-HRV and LF-HRV, and anger to be unrelated to any HRV index. However, a more complex pattern of relations emerged when the common (i.e. negative affect) and unique effects of depression, anxiety, and anger on HRV were evaluated simultaneously. First, the relation of depression to HRV indices was partially accounted for by negative affect, though variance unique to depression also predicted HF-HRV independently. Secondly, the relation of anxiety to HRV indices was fully accounted for by negative affect. Thirdly, anger emerged as an independent predictor of increased HF-HRV, suggesting the variance that anger shares with depression and anxiety predicts reduced HF-HRV and the variance that is unique to anger predicts increased HF-HRV. In sum, negative affect explains the common effects of psychosocial risk factors for CHD on cardiac autonomic function with unique aspects of depression and anger related independently to reduced and increased vagal modulation of heart rate, respectively. These findings underscore the importance of examining multiple negative affective dispositions in the same analysis to differentiate the elements of these traits that are specifically cardiotoxic.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-07302006-215929 |
| Date | 20 September 2006 |
| Creators | Bleil, Maria Elizabeth |
| Contributors | Kevin Kim, Anna Marsland, J. Richard Jennings, Thomas Kamarck, Karen Matthews, Stephen Manuck |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-07302006-215929/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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