Differences in emotion processing in patients with essential and secondary hypertension.
BACKGROUND
An impaired ability to experience and express emotions, known as alexithymia, has previously been associated with hypertension. Alexithymia and related emotion-processing variables, however, have never been examined as a function of the type of hypertension, essential (EH) or secondary (SH).


METHODS
Our working hypothesis was that if dysregulated emotional processes play a key neurobiological role in EH, they would be less present in hypertension due to specific medical causes or SH. A total of 98 consecutive hypertensive patients (73 EH, 25 SH) with similar blood pressure levels completed two complementary measures of emotion processing: the 20-item Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20) and the Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (LEAS).


RESULTS
After controlling for confounding variables, LEAS score was lower in EH than SH (estimated means: 46.4 vs. 52.0; P = 0.028; effect size 0.52). TAS-20 scores did not differentiate EH from SH, but the differences were in the expected direction, with an effect size of 0.34 for TAS-20 total score. Neither psychometric measure was associated with the duration of hypertension or the presence of cardiovascular (CV) complications.


CONCLUSIONS
These results are consistent with a contribution of an emotional or psychosomatic component in EH and may have practical implications for the nonpharmacological management of hypertension. They also demonstrate the utility of complementary measures of emotion processing in medically ill patients.
Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, Department of C-L Psychiatry, European Georges Pompidou Hospital, Paris, France. silla.consoli@egp.aphp.fr
Silla M
SM
Consoli
Cédric
C
Lemogne
Bernard
B
Roch
Stéphane
S
Laurent
Pierre-François
PF
Plouin
Richard D
RD
Lane
D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology*; D000368:Aged; D000959:Antihypertensive Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D004644:Emotions / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D006973:Hypertension / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000523:psychology*; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011594:Psychometrics
D000959:Antihypertensive Agents