Ambulatory cardiovascular functioning in healthy postmenopausal women with victimization histories

Criminal victimization is a prevalent stressor among women, with potentially long-lasting emotional consequences. The present study examined associations among severity of lifetime victimization, current posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, and ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) and heart rate (AHR) levels and variability. Thirty-nine healthy post-menopausal women who endorsed a history of criminal victimization completed a measure of PTSD symptom severity and participated in an average of 18 h of ambulatory cardiovascular monitoring. PTSD symptom clusters were associated with AHR. Symptom clusters and lifetime victimization severity jointly predicted ABP, with ABP the highest among severely victimized women with high levels of current intrusions. Given the prevalence of criminal victimization, biopsychosocial research on women's cardiovascular disease risk may benefit from increased attention to this stressor and its psychological sequelae.