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Stress‐related influences on blood pressure in African American women
Author(s) -
Webb Mary S.,
Beckstead Jason W.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
research in nursing and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.836
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1098-240X
pISSN - 0160-6891
DOI - 10.1002/nur.10053
Subject(s) - blood pressure , medicine , stress (linguistics) , psychology , gerontology , philosophy , linguistics
The relationship of blood pressure status to three stress‐related variables, anger, coping resources, and strain, was evaluated in 90 African American women. The majority of the participants (57%) were normotensive, 32% of the participants reported current use of hypertensive medication, and an additional 16% had a mean blood pressure greater than 140/90 mmHg but were not on hypertensive therapy. From an analysis using ANCOVA, participants in the latter group were found to have significantly higher scores on rational‐cognitive coping resources, controlling for age, waist/hip ratio, and pack‐years. No significant differences among the blood pressure groups were found in anger or personal strain. Fostering rational‐cognitive coping skills, which represent the ability to problem‐solve effectively and to set priorities, may be beneficial for African American women and should be evaluated further in a larger sample. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Res Nurs Health 25:383–393, 2002