Investigating the Mediating Role of Attachment Styles in the Relationship between Perceived Stress and Hypertension

Attachment styles play an important role in personality development and ability of individuals to regulate emotions, coping with stressful situations and how to respond to threatening conditions. Previous studies have also shown an association between insecure attachment styles and disease and illness progression. The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating role of attachment styles in the relationship between perceived stress and hypertension in patients with hypertension.

The present study was a descriptive correlational research method that was conducted in 2020. The samples included 350 patients with hypertension referred to Imam Reza, Valiasr and Razi hospitals in Birjand who were included in the study by simple random sampling. Data were collected using demographic information form, childhood attachment to each parent scale and perceived stress scale by interview method. Also, blood pressure was measured with a standard hand sphygmomanometer in the same way for all patients. In order to investigate the causal relationships between the variables, the structural equation modeling method was used with AMOS software.

The results showed that with the presence of insecure attachment mediator variable, there was a significant relationship between perceived stress and blood pressure (p<0.05). However, there was no significant relationship between perceived stress and blood pressure without the presence of the mediator.

Parents' insecure attachment styles act as mediator in the relationship between perceived stress and hypertension. Screening patients with high blood pressure in terms of attachment styles and planning to include this concept in related programs and interventions can help control blood pressure in stressful situations