Effect of Stressful Stimulus on Blood Pressure and Heart Rate in Patients with Cardiovascular Disease in Comparison with Healthy Subjects Based on Emotion Seeking Levels

The present research investigated the effects of stressful stimuli on heart rate and blood pressure in coronary patients in comparison with healthy subjects based on levels of emotion seeking. Therefore, 78 male coronary patients and 85 healthy men completed the Zuckerman Sensation Seeking Scale (form V). Then, based on the final score, 30 (15 patients with high level of emotion seeking and 15 patients with low level of emotion seeking) referred to Shahid Madani hospital in Tabriz and 30 healthy man (15 subjects with high level of emotion seeking and 15 subjects with low level of emotion seeking) were selected by convenience sampling (age range 30-50). First, blood pressure and heart rate were recorded as baseline without presenting any stimulus. After, inducing the stressful stimulus to each of the subjects, their blood pressure and heart rate were remeasured. Results of multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) showed that the stressful stimulus affected on blood pressure and heart rate in all subjects, so that mean scores of physiological indices in post-test were greater than the pretest. Results also showed that systolic and diastolic blood pressures in patients with low level of emotion seeking were higher than healthy subjects with low level of emotion seeking poststimulus. Based on the results we can say that patients with low level of emotion seeking experience more negative emotions than healthy subjects with low level of emotion seeking, and these negative emotions cause more cardiac responses in these patients. So, methods of inducing positive affect could be applied in health improvement.