Cardio Dynamic Response to Cold Pressor Test in Traffic Policemen in Chennai City

Traffic noise is one of the varied causative factors for stress, especially in cities like Chennai. Added to the other risks for stress, traffic policemen are victimized to this too. Blood pressure is an indicator to assess the cardiac status in stress. Increased cardiovascular reactivity to the CPT (Cold Pressor Test) helps to predict the future development of hypertension. So, the present study is aimed to assess the cardio dynamic response to cold pressor test among the traffic police personnel. This comparative study includes randomly selected 30 traffic policemen of Chennai city and 30 controls on whom the cold pressor test was performed. Traffic police personnel showed significant increase in BMI, higher resting heart rate and higher diastolic blood pressure than the controls. Systolic Blood Pressure (SBP) and Diastolic Blood Pressure (DBP) after immersion shows significantly (P<0.001) higher value in traffic police than the controls. Difference of SBP and DBP also shows high significance (P<0.05) among the policemen, but there was no such difference between the BP with regard to the duration of exposure (P>0.05). Traffic policemen are hyper reactive to cold pressor test compared to the controls. Hence they have to be sensitized about their risks and the need for stress management.