Trial DesignCumulative psychological stress and cardiovascular disease risk in middle aged and older women: Rationale, design, and baseline characteristics
Section snippets
Study design overview
From Spring 2012 to Summer 2013, invitation letters, informed consent forms and the stress questionnaire were mailed to potential participants from the WHS cohort. WHS is a randomized, double blind, placebo-controlled, mail-based 2×2×2 factorial trial of low dose aspirin (100 mg every other day), vitamin E (600 IU every other day) and beta-carotene (50 mg on alternate days) in the primary prevention of cancer and CVD among 39,876 female health professionals aged ≥45 years old. We do not expect
Results
These data reflect baseline results measured at time-point #1 (2012–2013) only. Table I displays the baseline characteristics of the 25,335 participants that comprise the cumulative psychological stress cohort, stratified by cumulative stress score quartile. Mean age of participants is 72.2 ± 6.04 years. Participants that reported higher levels of stress were younger, tended to be black race/ethnicity and more likely to be divorced or separated but less likely to be widowed. Possible CVD risk
Discussion
In this cumulative chronic psychological stress study of cardiovascular disease in middle and older aged women, the cumulative and PSS scores were modestly correlated. The correlation between each individual stress domain score and cumulative stress (excluding the same individual score) is stronger than the correlation with the Cohen perceived stress score. This suggests that cumulative stress is picking up a type of information that is not well represented by the PSS.
Although, associations
Acknowledgements
The Cumulative Chronic Psychological Stress Study in Middle-Aged and Older Women is funded by RO1 AG038492 from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to Michelle A. Albert, MD MPH and further supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute (CA047988) and National, Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (HL043851, HL080467, HL099355) that fund the overall WHS ongoing cohort follow-up. Much gratitude to the participants of the Women's Health Study ongoing cohort for their enthusiastic
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