Exploring women's psychoneuroendocrine responses to cancer threat: insights from a computer-based guided imagery task

It is proposed that computers could be used to examine patients' subjective experience in the face of cancer threat. This study provides initial validation of a computer-based stress task by examining the psychological, autonomic, and endocrine aspects of an individual's subjective experience of cancer threat surrounding mammography screening. A repeated measures design was used. A total of 38 healthy women performed a stress task (pertaining to mammography) and a control task (pertaining to osteoporosis prevention) on separate days during which psychological, autonomic, and endocrine reactions were monitored. Compared with the control task, the stress task induced higher autonomic responses (skin conductance and heart rate variability) and endocrine responses (salivary cortisol) but not psychological distress. Further, both the autonomic (skin conductance) and endocrine responses to cancer threat were moderated by mastery, a trait known to have a stress-buffering effect. Yet such a moderating effect was not observed for psychological indices of stress--that is, mood. Implications for nursing research and interventions are discussed.