Greater pressor reactivity in women with pre-eclampsia is not related to specific psychological or emotional stressors.

To investigate whether emotional or psychosocial factors could be significantly related with the development of pre-eclampsia, 15 pregnant women with early diagnosis of pre-eclampsia and 15 normotensive pregnant controls of comparable age (23-37 yr.), gestational age (10-37 wk.), parity (70% primiparous), amount of instruction, and marital status underwent a blood pressure monitoring during a specific psychological assessment based on a semistructured interview followed by the administration of three different questionnaires: the Symptom Checklist 90-Revised, the Perceived Stress Questionnaire-Recent, and the Questionnaire about Social Relationships. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate were measured at 2-min. intervals by an automatic device both during the interview and the questionnaires' administration. Both systolic and diastolic responses were significantly increased in both groups during the interview (deltaSBP = 15 vs. 10%; deltaDBP=28 vs. 15.8%), whereas no differences were observed in blood pressure while answering questionnaires. Conversely, differences in questionnaire responses between groups were not statistically significant. Present results confirm a greater pressor reactivity in these women with pre-eclampsia but does not specifically support that this was related to psychological or emotional stress.

Emotion recognition and expression in young obese participants: preliminary study.

This study of the presence of alexithymic characteristics in obese adolescents and preadolescents tested the hypothesis of whether they showed impaired recognition and expression of emotion. The sample included 30 obese young participants and a control group of 30 participants of normal weight for their ages. Stimuli, 42 faces representing seven emotional expressions, were shown to participants who identified the emotion expressed in the face. The Level of Emotional Awareness Scale was adapted for children to evaluate their ability to describe their emotions. Young obese participants had significantly lower scores than control participants, but no differences were found in recognition of emotion. The lack of words to describe emotions might suggest a greater prevalence of alexithymic characteristics in the obese participants, but the hypothesis of a general deficit in the processing of emotional experiences was not supported.

Anxiety and body satisfaction before and six months after mastectomy and breast reconstruction surgery.

As breast reconstruction is an important adjunct after mastectomy to regain physical integrity and also to improve affect, the present aim was to evaluate patients' subjective perceptions of body image during the whole breast reconstruction period and to assess the importance of their psychological reaction in terms of negative affectivity. Participants were 62 women, 43 women (M age = 46.4, SD = 9.8) who had had mastectomies and 19 healthy women (M age = 39.9, SD = 13.99). Patients were admitted for surgery at the Hospital S. Orsola in Bologna. Healthy subjects were relatives of the women and students, all with no history of breast pathology. The Body Satisfaction Scale and the State Anxiety Inventory-Y were administered to the two groups before, post, and 6 mo. after surgery. Analysis of scores indicated that during the period of the study, the women with mastectomies reported higher anxiety and also greater dissatisfaction with their body image than the healthy group, even when the breast had been reconstructed. This unexpected finding suggests patients' unrealistic expectations of the breast reconstruction and the surgical outcome.