Clinical trial NCT00005471: Anxiety and Cardiovascular Autonomic Control
Study type: OBSERVATIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Conditions: Cardiovascular Diseases
Heart Diseases
Lead sponsor: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
Sponsor class: NIH
First posted: 2000-05-26
Sex: MALE
Maximum age (years): 100
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
OLDER_ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary: To evaluate the hypothesis that chronic anxiety and/or anxiety disorders resulted in hyperkinetic cardiovascular autonomic regulation, often associated with increased coronary risk.

Detailed description: BACKGROUND:

Prospective epidemiologic data indicate a strong relationship of chronic anxiety and/or anxiety disorders to risk of sudden cardiac death. Other studies have shown that cardiac autonomic mechanisms are altered among stably anxious individuals in the direction of reduced parasympathetic and elevated sympathetic control. The latter investigations, however, have been based on very small clinic samples and have been incomplete in their assessment of cardiovascular regulation in anxiety.

This investigation was the first large-scale population-based research examining the cardiovascular physiology of anxiety, and helped to increase understanding of the reported association between anxiety and sudden cardiac death. This study also helped to identify groups in the general population at increased risk of sudden death.

DESIGN NARRATIVE:

The study used an ongoing well-characterized cohort, the VA Normative Aging Study (NAS), to recruit middle-aged and older community-dwelling men and women into the study. Using a variety of validated psychological and psychiatric screening instruments--including the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Composite International Diagnostic Interview, the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and the Crown-Crisp Index--the study population was characterized in terms of symptoms of anxiety and diagnosis of anxiety disorders. Cardiovascular autonomic control was then assessed among anxious and non-anxious individuals using non-invasive time-domain and power-spectral measures of heart rate and blood pressure variability. Cardiac output, total peripheral resistance, and end-tidal pCO2 were simultaneously assessed.

The study completion date listed in this record was obtained from the "End Date" entered in the Protocol Registration and Results System (PRS) record.

Eligibility criteria: No eligibility criteria

Primary outcomes:
Secondary outcomes:
Other outcomes:
Locations:
Study officials:
affiliation: Brigham and Women's Hospital
name: David Sparrow
References:
citation: Kubzansky LD, Kawachi I, Sparrow D. Socioeconomic status, hostility, and risk factor clustering in the Normative Aging Study: any help from the concept of allostatic load? Ann Behav Med. 1999 Fall;21(4):330-8. doi: 10.1007/BF02895966.
citation: Kubzansky LD, Kawachi I, Weiss ST, Sparrow D. Anxiety and coronary heart disease: a synthesis of epidemiological, psychological, and experimental evidence. Ann Behav Med. 1998 Spring;20(2):47-58. doi: 10.1007/BF02884448.
citation: Siegman AW, Kubzansky LD, Kawachi I, Boyle S, Vokonas PS, Sparrow D. A prospective study of dominance and coronary heart disease in the Normative Aging Study. Am J Cardiol. 2000 Jul 15;86(2):145-9. doi: 10.1016/s0002-9149(00)00850-x.