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Biomedical subjects

V Hodapp

Publications and source records attributed to V Hodapp.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

[Anger and risk of suicide. Study of elderly psychiatric patients].

A brief review of the literature on anger, depression, and suicidal behavior is presented. One problem of these investigations is in a lack of differentiation between the concepts of anger and anger expression. Especially, the question remains of whether depression is associated with anger turned outward or may be understood as a correlate of hostility directed to the subject. Self-destructive actions may be predicted more accurately if, in addition to severity of depression, anger and anger expression are included. In the present study of 48 older psychiatric patients the following variables were assessed: Measures for intelligence, the Self-rating Depression Scale of Zung, the questionnaire for assessing suicidality of Pöldinger, the number of attempted suicides, and the State-Trait-Anger Expression Inventory of Schwenkmezger, Hodapp and Spielberger. Anger-out and Anger Control, in contrast to depression, differentiate between patients with and without suicides attempts. The actual risk for suicide, assessed by the questionnaire for suicidality, is significantly predicted by the depression scale. The different associations of anger and depression with suicide indicators and the relevance of these results for diagnostics and prophylaxis are discussed.

Aged↗
PubMed1997

Cardiovascular responses during effortful active coping and acute experience of anger in women.

This study addresses the question of whether effortful active coping and anger provocation add in their effects on cardiovascular responses. Heart rate (HR), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) responses of 64 female students were collected during an active versus nonactive coping task with and without provocation. After a baseline period, women did mental arithmetic (active coping) or read numbers aloud (nonactive coping). Half of each group was then additionally provoked. Ratings of the emotional states (Positive and Negative Affect Scale) indicate that provocation led to an increase in anger, but not in fear or negative or positive affect. Effortful active coping and provocation elevated cardiovascular activity. Although active coping enhanced all cardiovascular variables, provocation particularly affected HR and DBP. The effects of active coping and provocation on HR and DBP but not on SBP were additive and probably were produced by different physiological mechanisms.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

A comparison between two methods for assessing heartbeat perception.

In this study two methods assessing heartbeat perception ability were compared. Subjects (N = 64) completed Schandry's (1981) mental tracking task and Störmer's (1988) heartbeat discrimination procedure (based on Whitehead, Drescher, Heiman, & Blackwell, 1977). In addition, subjects were tested on their ability to estimate the duration of time intervals. A high degree of correspondence was found between the two heartbeat perception tasks for the extreme groups of very good and very poor perceivers, but a low degree of correspondence emerged for the middle range of performance (overall r = .59, p less than .001). Time estimation did not correlate significantly with either heartbeat detection procedure. Blood pressure measurements taken after the Schandry task and between Störmer test blocks showed that blood pressure amplitude was elevated among good perceivers on both heartbeat detection tasks.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1991

[A questionnaire for assessing anger and expression of anger].

The State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) developed by Spielberger is a measure for state- and trait-anger and three different forms of anger expression. People differ in the extent to which they express anger overtly and directly (anger out), how often anger feelings are hold in or suppressed (anger in) or in the extent to which they are able to control their angry feelings or their overtly expressed anger (anger control). The scales are developed to determine the relevance of individual dispositions to express anger in the etiology and course of psychosomatic illness like hypertension, coronary heart disease etc. The present report is a summary of the research reports presented by Schwenkmezger and Hodapp (1986, 1989). It describes the development of the German adaptation of the STAXI, including itemmetrical and factor analytic results, detailed research on construct validity, and first experimental analyses.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Cardiovascular reactivity, anxiety and anger during perceived controllability.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between emotional and cardiovascular responses in an aversive active coping situation. A letter detection task was presented to 64 male students. From a stream of letters scrolling over a screen, subjects were required to eliminate specific letters. Task difficulty was varied by changing the speed with which the stream moved along on the screen. Perceived control over an aversive loud tone was manipulated by instruction. While blood pressure differences in the experimental conditions could not be found, the group with perceived control displayed greater increases in heart rate and greater shortening of pulse transit time. In subjects low in trait anger, belief of control over aversive tones led to heightened cardiovascular reactivity compared with subjects high in trait anger. The results are discussed with respect to suppression of anger and a possibly opposite effect of emotion and mental effort in aversive active coping situations.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

[Theoretical and empirical analyses of the structure of the State Trait Anxiety Inventory anxiety scales].

Based on considerations concerning content and the formal structure of items, this study investigates the dimensionality of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory scales. Item analyses, factor analyses using oblique factor rotation, and Rasch analyses were conducted on two samples of students (N = 269 and N = 159). From the results it is concluded that the factors of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory are not method factors constituted by differently directed item formulations. Rather, the structure of the scales reflects the differentiation of the anxiety construct into single subcomponents, especially cognitive and affective ones. In addition, similarities with negative affectivity and depressiveness are examined.

Anxiety Disorders↗
PubMed1976

[Subjective stress and childhood memories in patients with essential hypertension].

A group of essential hypertension patients (n equals 168) and a group of unselected controls (n equals 302) completed a questionaire constructed to measure perceived threat and rating-scales to judge the emotional atmosphere of personal childhood experiences. The patients do not regard their present life-situations as more threatening than the controls and they report more pleasant childhood memories than the controls. These results contradict those obtained in previous work which may be due to the relative lack of emphasis placed on coping variables in the present study.

Child Development↗
PubMedDate not supplied

[Environmental concern of clients of an environmental medicine counseling center].

Environmental apprehensiveness and anxiety are often regarded as being responsible for unspecific health complaints in the context of environmental exposures if toxicological findings cannot explain them. However, there is a lack of empirical data on the influence exercised by environmental anxiety. A German adaptation of the American Environmental Worry Scale [1] was developed. The questionnaire has been used in a study on clients of the Consultation Centre for Environmental Medicine (CCEM). These clients (n = 51) were compared with a control group of clients of a vaccination centre (n = 238). As expected, the clients of the CCEM showed higher values of environmental worry. Moreover, the clients of the CCEM revealed scores of trait-anxiety which were more than one standard deviation above the level of the reference group. Environmental worry was weakly associated with a higher degree of trait-anxiety.

Adolescent↗