Heart rate reactivity and current post-traumatic stress disorder when data are missing.

Area of Science:

• Psychophysiology
• Trauma Studies
• Biostatistics

Background:

• Missing data in physiological studies can lead to underestimation of true effects.
• Accurate assessment of physiological reactivity is crucial for understanding conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate how auxiliary and exclusion criteria variables enhance missing data imputation for physiological reactivity.
• To correct the underestimation of the relationship between heart rate reactivity and PTSD.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from Oklahoma City bombing survivors.
• Imputed missing heart rate data using auxiliary variables (PTSD arousal symptoms) and exclusion criteria (medical/medication status).
• Employed logistic regression to analyze heart rate reactivity in relation to current PTSD.

Main Results:

• Imputation methods revealed significantly higher baseline heart rates and slower heart rate recovery in survivors with current PTSD compared to those without.
• Analysis of complete cases failed to detect these significant correlations.
• 37% of participants had missing heart rate reactivity data.

Conclusions:

• The developed imputation methods successfully identified a previously undetectable association between physiological measures and current PTSD.
• This approach enhances the understanding of the psychophysiology of trauma survivors.