Facets of negative affectivity and blood pressure in middle-aged men
Research results suggesting that facets of negative affectivity, i.e. anxiety, anger-hostili ty, and depression, relate to incident cardiovas cular diseases have been steadily increasing. Evidence for depression has been especially extensive. Elevated blood pressure, a major risk factor of cardiovascular diseases, is one probable mediator in this context. The purpose of this study was to clarify the relationship of specific key elements of depressive disposi tion, i.e. depressive symptoms, hopelessness and vital exhaustion, with health behavior and blood pressure. Study sample was comprised of 710 middle-aged men. Participants completed self-report questionnaires assessing health behavior, depressive symptoms, vital exhaus tion and hopelessness. Statistical analyses involved descriptive analyses, correlations and path analysis. Depressive symptoms and vital exhaustion associated with several unfavor able lifestyles such as smoking, alcohol con sumption, and inactivity (standardized solu tion coefficients: 0.10, 0.14, 0.17, accordingly). However, no significant direct associations with blood pressure could be found for depres sive symptoms or vital exhaustion. Hopelessness associated only with unhealthy diet (standardized solution coefficient -0.10) Moreover, for hopelessness, results showed a direct but inverse association with systolic blood pressure (standardized solution coeffi cient -0.08). Results suggest that the previous ly reported relations of depression and vital exhaustion with blood pressure could be medi ated by unfavorable lifestyles. The relation of hopelessness with adverse health behaviors seems to be less significant. Also, the role of hopelessness as a risk factor of elevated blood pressure is not supported by the results of this study.
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