Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Moderates the Relation Between Neighborhood Social Cohesion and Generalized Anxiety Disorder Symptoms

Lower respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) is associated with decreased attention, impaired emotion regulation, and increased risk for internalizing problems, such as generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) symptoms (Beaucchaine, 2001). However, not all youth lower in RSA develop GAD symptoms, suggesting that contextual factors (e.g., neighborhood social cohesion; NSC) may influence these relations. Among youth lower in RSA who may have elevated stress responsivity and be more sensitive to context, communities higher in NSC may have greater social control, role models, and more positive interactions among neighbors, which may promote self-regulation among youth lower in RSA, potentially mitigating risk for GAD symptoms. In the present study, we explored whether RSA moderated the relation between NSC and youth GAD symptoms.

Participants were 102 children (50% female; M=9.95 ±1.23 years; 96% African-American, 4% Latino/a) drawn from 5 low income, urban elementary schools. Caregivers reported on NSC using the Community Survey Questionnaire (Earls, 1994) and children’s GAD symptoms using the Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory-4 (Gadow & Sprafkin, 2002). Baseline RSA was assessed using Bio-Impedance Technology’s HIC-2000, a non-invasive tool for detecting and measuring bioelectric impedance signals (Alkon et al., 2003; Bubier & Drabick, 2008). Age-appropriate stories were read to the child before and after the administration of various stressors to obtain baseline measures of RSA.

Regression analyses indicated that the NSC×RSA interaction predicted GAD symptoms (β= 0.46, p < .005). Post hoc probing was conducted using regions of significance and simple slope analyses (Dearing & Hamilton, 2006). There was a lower (-.45) and upper bound (.60) of regions of significance, indicating that youth higher and lower in RSA exhibited different GAD symptoms when NSC scores were below -.45 SD and above .60 SD from the standardized NSC mean. Post hoc probing indicated that the simple slope was significant among youth lower in RSA and higher in RSA. Among youth higher in RSA, higher NSC predicted lower symptoms than lower NSC. However, among youth lower in RSA, lower NSC predicted lower symptoms than higher NSC.

Results indicate that NSC exerted contrastive effects among youth varying in RSA in the prediction of GAD symptoms. These findings highlight that higher levels of NSC attenuated risk for GAD symptoms among youth lower in RSA, and exacerbated risk for GAD symptoms among youth higher in RSA. Prevention work should investigate the specific mechanisms associated with NSC that differentially influence risk or resilience for GAD symptoms among youth varying in RSA.