CARDIOVASCULAR RECOVERY FROM LABORATORY STRESS - BIOPSYCHOSOCIAL CONCOMITANTS IN OLDER ADULTS

Although cardiovascular recovery may be important to long term cardiov ascular health, its biopsychosocial correlates have received much less attention than the correlates of cardiovascular reactivity. Of the fe w studies that have examined recovery, fewer still have examined men a nd women over 60 yr of age. This study examined relationships of psych osocial factors (e.g. state anxiety, anger, avoidance coping, Type A b ehavior, etc.) with recovery in 186 older married men (n = 63) and wom en (n = 123) (mean age = 69.7 +/- 6.1 yr). Regressions were performed to explain recovery variability in systolic blood pressure (SEP), dias tolic blood pressure (DBP), and heart rate (HR) in response to emotion al and cognitive tasks. In each analysis, we controlled for the effect s of gender, type of task, reactivity to the task, and other important covariates. Individuals with slower recovery had higher scores on anx iety (for SBP, p<0.03 and DBP, p<0.01), higher scores on avoidance cop ing (for DBP and HR, p<0.01), and lower scores on anger held in (for D BP, p<0.01). Psychosocial factors may be important in explaining recov ery in older adults.