Abstract

There were many attempts to evaluate the correlation between stress and cardiovascular disease. It is important that stressful emotional status and process can impact on dynamic autonomic control of the heart. Subjects between the age of 30s and 40s were recruited from January to May of 2010. To examine the association of emotional stress and heart rate variability (HRV) we gathered life event stress scale scores, cognitive stress response scale scores, and HRV data using 5-minute electrocardiographic recordings of subjects. Cognitive stress score was inversely associated with three indices of HRV (SDNN, TP, and LF) significantly After adjusting for age, BMI. However, there was no significant relationship between life event stress score and HRV. We found cognitive stress had a significant correlation with SDNN as a predictive variable. Cardiac autonomic function had stronger relationship with the amount of cognitive stress, which is subjective to individual, than the amount of life event stress. Therefore cognitive stress can possibly be considered as a risk factor of cardiovascular disease. We suggest further studies about stress management to prevent cardiovascular disease and using HRV as a predictive marker. (Korean J Str Res 2011;19:273∼279)

• Keywords: Stress, HRV, Cognitive stress, Life event stress