title: Blood pressure variability and stress management training for essential hypertension.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine whether stress management training reduces blood pressure (BP) variability in hypertensive patients. Previous literature suggests that cardiovascular risk is not only a function of BP levels, but also of BP variability, and this partially depends on changes induced by the stress of everyday life. The authors reanalyzed data from a previous study of 43 male patients with essential hypertension who were randomly assigned to 2 groups (stress management training and waiting list). Patients in the stress management group lowered their self-measured BP variability significantly from pretreatment to the 4-month follow-up examination, showing a mean reduction of 2.6/1.5 mm Hg in the standard deviation of systolic/diastolic BP (SBP/DBP), and a mean decrease of 1.84/1.59% in the coefficient of variation of SBP/DBP. For SBP, these reductions were significantly greater than those showed by the control group. These results suggest that stress management training is effective in reducing day-to-day BP variability, providing an additional reduction in cardiovascular risk for hypertensive patients.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Personalidad, Evaluación y Psicología Clínica, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. mpgvera@psi.ucm.es
authors.forename: María Paz
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: García-Vera
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sanz
authors.forename: Francisco J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Labrador
mesh_terms: D002318:Cardiovascular Diseases / Q000209:etiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012307:Risk Factors; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000517:prevention & control*; D014850:Waiting Lists