Stress and Blood Pressure in Dementia Caregivers: The Moderator Role of Mindfulness

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Dementia caregiving has been described as a chronically stressful situation with adverse cardiovascular effects. Psychological resources such as mindfulness may reduce the impact of stress on caregivers' cardiovascular health. The objective of this study was to analyze the moderating effect of trait mindfulness on the relationship between frequency of disruptive behaviors of the care recipient and blood pressure (BP) in dementia caregivers. METHOD: Participants were 110 dementia family caregivers. Two hierarchical regressions (for systolic and diastolic BP) were conducted to analyze whether mindfulness moderates the relationship between disruptive behaviors and BP after controlling for known predictors of cardiovascular outcomes. RESULTS: A significant moderator effect of mindfulness was found between the frequency of disruptive behaviors and diastolic BP (=-.195, p < .05). Among those caregivers reporting low levels of mindfulness, the relationship between frequency of disruptive behaviors and diastolic BP was relatively stronger than among those reporting high mindfulness levels. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that a high level of trait mindfulness may have protective effect on BP when caregivers face high levels of stress. CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS: Mindfulness seems to be an important variable with potential for buffering the effects of caregiving stressors on caregivers' blood pressure.

Trait Mindfulness, Rumination, and Well-being in Family Caregivers of People with Acquired Brain Injury

“…A potential explanation is that trait mindfulness would reduce the negative impact of the stress experienced by caregivers. Different studies have shown that trait mindfulness moderates the relationship between stressors and mental health (e.g., Conner & White, 2014;de Frias & Whine, 2014;Vara-García et al, 2019). This protective role of trait mindfulness has been also reported in different studies with caregivers, where mindfulness moderates the negative impact of stressors (e.g., Conner & White, 2014;Vara-García et al, 2019).…”

Associations between pleasant events, activity restriction, stressors, and blood pressure in caregivers of persons with dementia

“…Even though we found no significant changes in blood pressure over the interview, we still encourage caution when interpreting the obtained findings, and suggest that future studies assessing blood pressure at rest do so prior to conducting any psychosocial assessments. Finally, although we controlled health characteristics or habits like body mass index or physical exercise, other health behaviors like smoking or alcohol consumption, or use of medication like statins or antihypertensives, suggested to be predictors of cardiovascular risk as well (Harmell et al, 2011;Mausbach et al, 2017;Vara-García et al, 2019;von Känel et al, 2008), were not controlled and could have increased the variance of mean arterial pressure explained by the model. Future studies should try to advance our knowledge in terms of factors contributing to the understanding of caregivers' activity restriction and engagement in pleasant events, as well as other dimensions that may contribute to their blood pressure and the interplay between these variables and caregivers' distress or mental health.…”

Associations of knowledge about Alzheimer’s disease, dysfunctional cognition, and coping with caregiver’s blood pressure

“…An electronic sphygmomanometer OMROM M7 (HEM-780-E) was used for measuring resting BP. Following the same procedure as in previous studies (e.g., Márquez-González et al, 2018, Vara-García et al, 2019, three measures of systolic and diastolic BP were taken throughout the individual interview, which lasted an hour and a half approximately. The first BP measure was tested at the beginning of the interview (after the informed consent was signed), the second BP measure was taken in the middle of the interview (approximately 45 minutes after the first assessment), and the third BP assessment approximately one hour and a half after the first assessment (at the end of the interview).…”

“…In non-caregiver populations it has been suggested that while sadness equally influences systolic and diastolic BP, changes in fear, action, and joy are more related with changes in systolic BP and modifications in anger have been associated with changes in diastolic BP (Sinha et al, 1992). Regarding caregiving research, differential effects have been found for both systolic and diastolic BP (e.g., Vitaliano et al, 1993) and on some occasions even just for one of them (Kim et al, 2007, Vara-García et al, 2019. For this reason, it is a recommendable practice to assess both measures of BP when analyzing the effects of caregiving or related variables.…”