The paradoxical relation between diastolic blood pressure change under stress and the H factor of the Jenkins Activity Survey.

This study examined the relation of the Type A scale and of the three factors of the Jenkins Activity Survey to the cardiovascular responses of twenty-six subjects during two stressful tasks. The two tasks were reaction time (RT) and paced arithmetic (PA) and the sample was drawn from a general medical practice. While heart rate correlated directly with the subject's score on the Hard Driving and Competitive Factor (H), diastolic blood pressure response to PA was inversely related to the subject's Type A and factor H scores. This paradoxical inverse relation remained highly significant when the diastolic pressure in the rest preceding PA was statistically controlled.