Why the study?
Do individual variables affect the success of learning heart rate control via biofeedback?
Do individual variables affect the success of learning heart rate control via biofeedback?
Individual variables like locus of control and trait anxiety may influence success in biofeedback for heart rate control, but existing research has significant methodological flaws.
Individual variables should not yet guide biofeedback selection; leaves open their predictive value pending rigorous studies.
Thirty-seven published reports of the relationship between various “individual variables” and success at learning control of heart rate via biofeedback are reviewed. The individual variables examined are locus of control, autonomic and cardiac perception, trait anxiety, imagery vividness, gender, personality correlates, and combinations of these. Differential outcomes are associated with each of these variables, but methodological limitations threaten the overall validity of much of this research. Suggestions for future research are made, and the issue of effective client-treatment matching considered.
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Heffernan-colman et al. (1992) studied this question.
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