Autonomic Arousal and Fear in the Spinal Cord Injured

Abstract

A quasi‐experimental design was used to test the relationship between neurological status (cervical complete spinal cord injury versus lower thoracic‐lumbar spinal cord injury versus no injury — 15 subjects each group), physiological arousal, and self‐reports of fear in subjects exposed to a fear‐inducing film segment. Partial support was obtained for the hypothesis that neurological status is related to physiological arousal. Non‐injured subjects displayed the greatest arousal, with significant increases in pulse rate (p ◂ .001) and moderate increases in systolic (p = .06) and diastolic (p = .09) blood pressures during the film. Subjects with lower spinal cord injury showed equally significant increases in pulse rate (p ◂ .001), but only slight increases in diastolic blood pressure and no increases in systolic blood pressure. Those with complete cervical injury showed random fluctuations in all of the physiological measurements. No group showed any significant changes in respiratory rate. Moderate support for the expected relationship between neurological status and self‐reports of fear was found at a probability level of p = .07. The group with complete cervical injury reported less fear than the group with lower spinal cord injury or the non‐injured group.

Psychological or physiological

“…41 It was based on our hypothesis that the amount of spinal cord tissue "lost to the brain" was a paramount factor in determining potential neurocognitive differences among our study groups. 41 It was based on our hypothesis that the amount of spinal cord tissue "lost to the brain" was a paramount factor in determining potential neurocognitive differences among our study groups.…”

AIDS Education Strategies

“…Blood pressure (BP), pulse (P), and galvanic skin response (GSR) were used as autonomic response variables. As other nursing investigators have shown (Anderson, 1989;Carr, 1990;Winters, 1986), it is often useful to include objective measures as confirmatory data for more subjective indicators such as qualitative response or self report. This was the intention in employing autonomic measures of arousal in conjunction with the FSS-III.…”