Psychosocial demands and ambulatory blood pressure: a field assessment approach

Ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) has been shown to have independent prognostic value, over and beyond the effects of clinic blood pressure (CBP) measures. We have examined the role of psychosocial demands in understanding ABP, using an electronic diary to measure ongoing experience in the field at the time of each blood pressure reading (ecological momentary assessment). In our previous work, several psychosocial factors were shown to be associated, within-person, with acute fluctuations in ABP in a healthy adult sample. Here, we replicate these findings in a new sample, and we also examine associations of the same variables with mean ABP (between-person) over a 6-day period. Five measures assumed to be markers of psychosocial demands (negative affect, arousal, task demand, decisional control, and social conflict) were shown here to be independently associated with ABP fluctuations during daily life, after adjustment for posture, activity, and substance use. Two of these, measures of task demand and decisional control, were also associated with mean ambulatory systolic blood pressure (SBP), and these latter associations persisted after controlling for CBP. These results support the possibility that psychosocial factors may account for some of the unique predictive value associated with ABP, and they support the value of these field assessment methods.