Heart rate reactivity and depression in African-American and white dementia caregivers: Reporting bias or positive coping?

Caring for a demented older relative is a chronic stressor with mental health implications, but with unclear physical health implications. Two potential explanations of positive responses to stress are compared: the faking good hypothesis and the coping style of positive reappraisal of the stressor. In this investigation, 110 white caregivers and 44 African-American caregivers are compared on cardiovascular reactivity to induced stress, self-reported depression and anxiety and on two measures of positive appraisal of stress: the motivational distortion scale from the 16PF and a measure of positive reappraisal. African-American caregivers used positive reappraisal more than whites. Both whites and African-Americans showed significant heart rate reactivity in response to mental arithmetic and to relating a caregiving story. No evidence was found for influence of motivational distortion on heart rate reactivity. Positive reappraisal and self-reported depression were positively related to heart rate reactivity for whites in both stress conditions. Both were inversely related to heart rate reactivity for African-Americans in the caregiving story condition. Cultural differences between African-American and white caregivers appear to affect both emotional and physical reactions to caregiving stress.