Temporal stability of task-induced cardiovascular, adrenergic, and psychological responses: the effects of race and hypertension.

This study examined the test-retest reliability of task-induced responses of blood pressure, heart rate, norepinephrine, epinephrine, anger, and anxiety in 98 black and white normotensive and hypertensive individuals. Subjects completed three laboratory tasks (standing, mental arithmetic, and cold pressor) on two occasions 10 days apart. For all subjects, all baseline and test-retest correlation coefficients were significant (rs = .23-.71; median = .58). Baseline-adjusted (residual scores) reactivity test-retest correlation coefficients were consistently smaller (rs = .02-.55; median = .36). In contrast to the white hypertensives, white normotensives, and black normotensives, the black hypertensives showed no significant baseline-adjusted test-retest correlation coefficients (rs = -.21-.40; median = .12). Epinephrine responses revealed a significant session by race interaction; blacks had 20% higher mean values and whites had 10% lower mean values upon retesting. The data suggest that race and hypertension may interact to affect the temporal stability of task-induced responses to stressors.