BLOOD-PRESSURE REACTIVITY AND MARITAL DISTRESS IN EMPLOYED WOMEN

Objective: The impact of marital distress on cardiovascular responses to an ''ecologically valid'' laboratory stressor (a marital conflict r ecall task) was examined in maritally distressed and non-distressed wo men. It was hypothesized that the presence of high levels of marital d istress would be associated with elevated blood pressure and heart rat e responses to a marital conflict task. Method: Fifty married, employe d women, aged 25-45, were recruited into high and low marital distress groups, based on total scores on the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Subject s participated in three laboratory stress tasks: a marital conflict re call task, a work conflict recall task, and a serial subtraction task. Results: During the marital conflict recall task, women characterized as high in marital distress exhibited higher systolic blood pressure (M = 21.4 +/- 9.1 vs. 17.3 +/- 7.7) (p <.05) and heart rate (M = 13.6 +/- 9.5 vs. 10.9 +/- 6.5) (p <.01) responses, compared with low-distre ss women. However, the association between marital distress and cardio vascular response was statistically significant only after aggregate r esponses to the control stressors were used as covariates. Conclusion: These data indicate that the stress associated with recalling a marit al conflict was manifest in elevated blood pressure and heart rate, pa rticularly among women characterized as experiencing high levels of di stress in their marriage. Future research is needed to determine wheth er the blood pressure differences between women who are satisfied with their marriage, versus those that are chronically distressed are clin ically meaningful. In addition, examination of the ''ecological validi ty'' of laboratory stressors suggests that a useful methodology may be to assess task responses, while controlling for nonspecific individua l differences in cardiovascular reactivity.