Psychophysiological reactivity, depression, neuroticism and type a behaviour: An interactive effect?

Abstract

The greater reactivity in Type A subjects is a controversial issue. It is possible that anxiety, neuroticism and depression interact with Type A behaviour pattern, giving rise to different psychophysiological reactivity. To evaluate this hypothesis we studied 70 Italian healthy male volunteers. All were blue‐collar workers. Cardiac health was confirmed by a detailed family and medical history. Individual assessment included the Structured Interview, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ), the State‐Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and the Depression Questionnaire (QD). To assess cardiac (rate‐pressure product) and electrodermic (skin conductance level) psychophysiological reactivity we used the following tasks: (1) Interactive Concentration Test (ICT); (2) Mental Arithmetic (MAT); (3) Workside Noises (WN). In Type A (A1 + A2) subjects a higher neuroticism score was associated with greater reactivity whereas in non A (X + B) subjects a lower neuroticism score was associated with greater reactivity. Subjects classified as Type A with lower depression scores had greater cardiovascular responses, whereas in non A subjects higher depression scores were associated with greater reactivity.

Patients in a persistent vegetative state: caregiver attitudes and reactions

“…It has been validated in 2304 healthy subjects and 6175 chronic patients subdivided by sex and age (12–14). Only some of these questionnaires were administered to the caregivers: the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI X1, X2) (15), which is one of the most widely used scales for measuring the two distinct forms of state and trait anxiety; the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) (16), the Italian version of which includes 48 dichotomous items for the subjective evaluation of some stable dimensions of the personality that are represented as a bipolar continuum covering extraversion (E), neuroticism (N) and psychoticism (P), and includes a “lie” scale (L) which acts as a control index insofar as it evaluates the presence of social ingenuousness, social desirability or simulation; and the Depression Questionnaire (DQ), which contains 24 dichotomous items for the subjective evaluation of depressive symptoms.…”

Relationships between hostility and physiological coronary heart disease risk factors in young adults: the moderating influence of depressive tendencies

“…In regard to the potential interactive effects of hostility and DT on heart disease risk, it has been found that simultaneous vital exhaustion VE), which shares many similarities with DT, and marked hostility harbours a fourfold risk of recurrent events after percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (Mendes de Leon et al 1996). A complex interaction between constructs that may be relevant here is also suggested by a study showing that male blue-collar workers exhibiting both high Type A characteristics (hostility has been suggested to be the core component of the Type A construct) and low depression scores have greater cardiovascular responses to stress as compared to individuals exhibiting a combination of a lack of Type A characteristics and high depression scores (Bertolotti et al 1995).…”