Results tagged “Psychophysiological Stress Profile” from Research in Psychosomatic Medicine

 Somatic symptoms of medically unknown origin are highly prevalent in the community and clinical settings.  Functional somatic syndrome (FSS) refers to several related syndromes that are characterized more by symptoms, suffering, and disability than by demonstrable abnormalities.  Two aspects should be considered in the underlying pathophysiology of FSS: dysregulation of the stress response in autonomic nervous systems and psychological factors that modulate the expression of symptoms.

 Psychophysiological Stress Profiling (PSP) is a method of estimating the response to a stress by measuring multiple physiological parameters and psychological indices.
Physiological indices were hypo-reactive to mental work stress and psychological tension was high in the FSS compared with controls.  These findings suggest FSS patients have hypo-functional stress responses, and couldn't cope with the stress properly.

Table2_PSPMeasurements.pdf

<Physiological Measurements>
  The measurement of PSP was made using the ProComp Infinity™/ BioGraph Infinity (Thought Technology Ltd., Montreal) biofeedback system.  The following indices were measured (Table 2).

<Psychological Measurements>
  To evaluate the temporary mood states, the Profile of Mood States (POMS) test was administered. The POMS assesses six affective mood dimensions: tension-anxiety (TA), depression-dejection (D), anger-hostility (A), vigor-activity (V), fatigue-inertia (F), and confusion-bewilderment(C).

  The subjective symptom score (subjective severity of symptoms) and the subjective tension score (subjective feelings of tension) were also obtained using a visual analogue scale.

 
<Procedure>
  After the psychological measurements were administered, the physiological measurements were made during the following three periods (5 minutes each, total of 15 minutes).  The subject was seated in a chair with eyes closed.

a) Baseline resting period: the subject was instructed to relax and make himself/ herself comfortable
b) Stress period (mental arithmetic task): the subject was instructed to subtract 7 serially from 1000.
c) Post stress period: the subject was instructed to relax.

  Overall, physiological indices relevant to ANS were hypo-reactive to mental work stress and psychological tension indices were high in the FSS patients compared with healthy controls.  These findings suggest that FSS patients have hypo-functional stress responses, and could not cope with the stress properly, so felt higher subjective tension feelings.

  While these findings were results by averaging, the cluster analysis divided the FSS patients into two clusters by autonomic response to the stress: high-lability and low-lability group (the number of low-lability group was larger).  The mood scores were higher in the high-lability group than in the low-lability group.

  Moreover, heart rate variability, well known as an index of autonomic function, was reduced at the pre-stress resting period in FSS patients.  This finding suggests that both reduced autonomic lability in pre-stress period and attenuated autonomic response to stress exist, and both dysfunctions would interactively yield the maladaptive process.

  These tendencies were not depend upon diagnosis, suggesting the existence of common pathophysiology in FSS patients.