Laboratory Stress Testing Methodology

Abstract

Psychophysiological investigations of the acute effects of stress on physiological measures that have been implicated as risk factors for or contributors to chronic illnesses, notably hypertension and coronary heart disease typically are studied using a deceptively simple paradigm: A resting baseline is measured, the subject is exposed to a stressor, another measurement (or measurements) is taken, the change computed, the results published. However, there are many subtleties that may affect one’s outcomes; often these will lead to null results when there may truly be an effect that supports one’s hypothesis or, conversely, may increase the experimentwise error rate (Type I error). This chapter provides a reference for the design and interpretative issues. Inherent in these experiments that will help the researcher obtain data that are interpretable and that contribute to the understanding of the role of acute stress in chronic disease.