Cardiovascular Reactivity to Psychological Stress in Healthy Children

ABSTRACT Cardiovascular reactivity to stress has been implicated as a marker and/or mechanism in the development of cardiovascular disease. No normative data exist to classify children's reactivity to psychological stress. This investigation presents normative percentile data on the hemodynamic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychophysiology 1988-03, Vol.25 (2), p.144-152
Main Authors: Murphy, Joseph K., Alpert, Bruce S., Willey, Elaine S., Somes, Grant W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Arousal
Biological and medical sciences
Blood Pressure
Blood pressure reactivity
Child
Child development
Children
Developmental psychology
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Heart Rate
Heart rate reactivity
Humans
Male
Play and Playthings
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Stress
Stress, Psychological - psychology
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Summary:ABSTRACT Cardiovascular reactivity to stress has been implicated as a marker and/or mechanism in the development of cardiovascular disease. No normative data exist to classify children's reactivity to psychological stress. This investigation presents normative percentile data on the hemodynamic responses (heart rate and blood pressure) of 310 healthy, black or white, children between the ages of 6 and 18 years to the stress of a television video game. A series of three video games, played under three increasing levels of stress, elicited progressively higher values of blood pressure and heart rate. Both the child's race and gender, as well as the experimenter's race, significantly affected reactivity. Children demonstrated a wide range of interchild reactivity, thus allowing separation of individuals into high and low risk percentile groups.
ISSN:0048-5772
1469-8986
1540-5958
DOI:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1988.tb00977.x