Personality traits represent major aspects of depression and psychological stress. Type D (distressed) personality is associated with negative health outcomes and has been linked to poor stress reactivity. Type D is made up of two sub-scales, negative affectivity and social inhibition, and Type D individuals are at an increased risk for cardiovascular disorders. They are also a more likely to use maladaptive coping strategies with them commonly using avoidant coping. Impaired post-stress recovery has also been a reported finding when investigating Type D using heart rate variability (HRV) . HRV is a bio marker of stress that records the variation in each successive heartbeat and produces three indices: low frequency power (LF), high frequency power (HF) and low frequency high frequency ratio (LF/HF). These each represent the sympathetic, parasympathetic and sympathovagal balance. 43 female University students took part in a questionnaire which measured Type D and coping on the Type D personality scale (DS-14) and Brief-COPE. 20 of these participants were brought into the laboratory for testing where HRV was measured at baseline and during recovery. Their HRV was also measured during a cognitive stressor called the PASAT. It was found that Type D participants used more avoid ant coping than non-type D. Independent t-tests showed a significant difference in the LF and HF for type D participants at baseline. No interaction was found for the PASAT in type Dor non-type D participants however there was an effect of type Don the recovery LF and HF indices. Type D appears to have some effect on cardiovascular reactivity but needs further investigation. The findings also suggest the PASAT task was not a successful stressor and future research investigating other physiological measures of stress is needed.
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