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The relationship between psychological and physiological measures of anxiety

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

Gary R. Morrow  and
Anthony H. Labrum
Gary R. Morrow*
Affiliation:
University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, USA
Anthony H. Labrum
Affiliation:
University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, USA
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr Gary R. Morrow, Medical Psychiatric Liaison Group, Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center, 300 Crittenden Blvd, Rochester, NY 14642, USA.
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Synopsis

The responses of 6 representative physiological parameters frequently assumed to be measures of anxiety along with a set of 4 psychological tests for measuring anxiety were obtained under naturalistic conditions from 25 patients hospitalized with a first myocardial infarction. A canonical correlational analysis failed to show any relationship between anxiety as assessed by the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale, Mood Adjective Check List, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory and Multiple Affect Adjective Check List psychological tests, and anxiety as assessed by the physiological indices of heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, epinephrine, norepinephrine and VMA. The intercorrelation matrix revealed a significant positive pattern of relationships among all 4 psychological tests, a non-significant, positive pattern of relationships among the physiological indices, and a non-significant, negative pattern of relationships between the psychological and physiological measures. The absence of mood-specific physiological measures for anxiety, as measured by the psychological tests, supports previous theory and investigation and points to the inadvisability of assuming that studies on anxiety that use diverse physiological and psychological measures yield results that may be compared as though they were assessing a common mood.

Type
Research Article
Information
Psychological Medicine , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , February 1978 , pp. 95 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1978

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