Psychological assessment in the elderly with new mild systolic hypertension

Summary m of this investigation was to assess the anxiety levels and the presence of symptoms of depression in elderly subjects with recently diagnosed mild systolic hypertension. We selected 13 elderly with new systolic hypertension and 13 elderly normotensive subjects; they underwent psychometric tests like state test anxiety inventory (STAI) for anxiety, and geriatric depression scale (GDS) for depression, and 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM) to assess the real pressure values and exclude the white-coat effect. ABPM data reaffirmed the high values of systolic pressure in the elderly hypertensives identified by using clinical measurements, although it excluded the white-coat effect. Our study found significantly higher anxiety levels in the elderly with mild systolic hypertension, while the symptoms of depression are not significantly different from those of elderly normotensives.