A non-linear association between self-reported negative emotional response to stress and subsequent allostatic load: Prospective results from the Whitehall II cohort study
Section snippets
Method
The study used data from the Phases 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 of the Whitehall II cohort. The original sample (Phase 1, recruited in 1985–1988) included 10,308 British civil service workers aged 35–55. At baseline, participants completed a questionnaire and were given a clinical health examination. Follow-up questionnaire data were collected at every subsequent phase, approximately two years apart, Phase 2 being in 1989. Follow-up medical examinations were conducted every five years at Phases 3
Results
Ninety percent reported at least one event either at Phase 1 or Phase 2, with the mean number of reported events being 2.9 (SD = 1.97). The proportion of people who experienced each event and the average rating of the event's emotional impact are presented in Table 1.
As expected, people who experienced more events tended to be on average more upset about them (zero-order correlation between number of events and NER r = .13, p < .0001). Baseline serious illness and lower socioeconomic position were
Discussion
The present study investigated the relationship between patterns of emotional response to stress, as measured by the average strength of self-reported negative emotional response to several major life events, and AL, a cumulative measure of physiological dysregulation assumed to result from stress. We found a prospective non-linear association between self-reported emotional response and AL, i.e. people with both stronger than average and weaker than average emotional response had higher AL
Conflict of interest statement
The authors have no conflict of interest to report.
Role of the funding source
This work was not supported by any grants.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the participants of the Whitehall II study and all the staff involved in data collection and maintenance. We also thank Theis Lange for his advice on statistical analyses.
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