Psychological distress, depression and prolactin response in stressed persons.

We examined the relationship of psychological distress to serum prolactin response in 54 persons who had lost a spouse or were threatened with a loss. We found that our two measures of psychological distress, both separation anxiety and depression, were directly correlated with prolactin response during a stressful interview (p less than .05). When we stratified the sample first by depression score and then by separation anxiety, we found a positive correlation between separation anxiety and prolactin response only in the highly depressed half of the sample (r = .32) and a positive correlation between depression and prolactin response only in the highest quartile of intensity for separation anxiety (r = .49, p less than .05). This suggested that both depression and separation anxiety, each in conjunction with high levels of the other but not independently, rendered the individual under stress more physiologically sensitive to distressing challenges such as a stressful interview. Alternatively, it was global distress above a certain threshold that was associated with degree of physiological response.