Psychological changes accompanying and mediating stress-management training for essential hypertension

In a previous controlled study, 21 participants with essential hypertension were treated with a program based on education, relaxation and D'Zurilla p roblem-solving training, and another 21 participants were assigned to a wai ting list control condition (Garcia-Vera, Labrador, & Sanz, 1997). In this report, the pre-post-treatment psychological changes accompanying those con ditions were examined with the Jenkins Activity Survey, the Rosenbaum Self- Control Schedule, the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the D' Zurilla-Nezu Social Problem-Solving Inventory. Treatment yielded significan t psychological changes that included an increase of problem-solving abilit ies. Moreover, correlation and multiple regression analyses revealed that, when clinic blood pressure (BP) values were considered, increases in proble m-solving abilities were correlated with systolic and diastolic BP reductio ns for participants in the stress-management condition, and they mediated p artially the antihypertensive effects of stress-management training on BP N o significant correlations were found between psychological changes and sel f-measured systolic ol diastolic BP reductions.