Maladaptive rumination moderates the effects of written emotional disclosure on ambulatory blood pressure levels in females

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics for final sample and main study variables (n = 52).

	Mean	SD
Age	18.37	0.66
BMI	22.30	2.79
% Caucasian	85.1%	–
% Parental hypertension	27.5%	–
Baseline SBP	109.12	9.13
Baseline DBP	64.81	7.05
Ambulatory SBP	117.92	12.18
Ambulatory DBP	72.54	9.80
Brooding score	10.98	2.95
Reflection score	11.39	3.53

Note: SBP = systolic blood pressure and DBP = diastolic blood pressure; BMI = body mass index.

Table 2. Effects of writing condition and brooding on ABP at 2 and 14 weeks follow-up (controlling for parental hypertension, activity levels, age and BMI).

	Two weeks follow-up				Fourteen weeks follow-up
HLM effect	Symbol	Coeff.	SE	p	Symbol	Coeff.	SE	p
Intercept SBP level	β00	115.53	2.66	<.001	β00	114.43	2.454	<.001
Baseline SBP level	β01	0.62	0.11	<.001	β01	0.54	0.11	<.001
Parental hypertension	β02	−3.83	1.56	<.05	β02	−4.43	1.78	<.05
Writing condition	β03	10.40	5.21	.052	β03	6.95	5.68	.23
Age	β04	1.82	1.09	.10	β04	1.85	1.29	.19
BMI	β05	0.30	0.29	.31	β05	−0.07	0.28	.74
Brooding	β06	−0.09	0.30	.76	β06	−0.08	0.31	.73
Condition × brooding	β07	−0.91	0.45	.052	β07	−0.37	0.45	.43
Level 1 slope
Activity level – SBP level	β10	4.51	0.58	<.001	β10	4.51	0.58	<.001
Intercept DBP level	β00	69.10	2.26	<.001	β00	68.89	1.90	<.001
Baseline DBP	β01	0.43	0.10	<.001	β01	0.28	0.10	<.01
Parental hypertension	β02	−2.52	1.19	<.05	β02	−3.17	1.44	<.05
Writing condition	β03	11.12	4.58	<.05	β03	7.03	4.16	.11
Age	β04	1.22	0.79	.13	β04	2.30	1.09	<.05
BMI	β05	0.05	0.15	.77	β05	0.03	0.22	.90
Brooding	β06	0.16	0.26	.54	β06	0.37	0.25	.14
Condition × brooding	β07	−0.96	0.42	<.05	β07	−0.56	0.35	.12
Level 1 slope
Activity level – DBP level	β10	3.58	0.48	<.001	β10	4.71	0.67	<.001

Note: HLM = hierarchical linear modelling; Symbol = hierarchical multivariate linear modelling symbol; Coeff. = unstandardized coefficient; SE = standard error; SBP = systolic blood pressure; DBP = diastolic blood pressure; BMI = body mass index.

Figure 1. Interactions of brooding by condition on DBP and SBP at week 2 follow-up. Low brooding = 1.5 SDs below the mean. Average brooding = mean. High brooding = 1.5 SDs above the mean. WED = written emotional disclosure.