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The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol

The COVID-19 pandemic can be characterized as a chronic stressor affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, indexed by glucocorticoids (e.g., cortisol). We investigated whether salivary cortisol level is increased during a lockdown and whether a lockdown condition affects the associati...

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Autores principales: Haucke, Matthias, Golde, Sabrina, Saft, Silvia, Hellweg, Rainer, Liu, Shuyan, Heinzel, Stephan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier Ltd. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9385585/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36007471
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105894
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author Haucke, Matthias
Golde, Sabrina
Saft, Silvia
Hellweg, Rainer
Liu, Shuyan
Heinzel, Stephan
author_facet Haucke, Matthias
Golde, Sabrina
Saft, Silvia
Hellweg, Rainer
Liu, Shuyan
Heinzel, Stephan
author_sort Haucke, Matthias
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic can be characterized as a chronic stressor affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, indexed by glucocorticoids (e.g., cortisol). We investigated whether salivary cortisol level is increased during a lockdown and whether a lockdown condition affects the association between loneliness, specific COVID-19 related stressors and salivary cortisol level. We conducted a smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study with 280 participants in Germany who experienced at least mild loneliness and distress amid COVID-19 from August 2020 to March 2021. We measured their momentary loneliness and COVID-related stressors including worries, information seeking behaviors and feelings of restriction during “no-lockdown” or “lockdown” stages amid COVID-19. Their salivary cortisol was measured 4 times on the last day of a 7-day EMA study. We found a significant increase in salivary cortisol levels during lockdown compared to no-lockdown. Lockdown stage was found to moderate the relationship between momentary loneliness and salivary cortisol level, i.e., loneliness was positively related to cortisol level specifically during lockdown. Mechanisms explaining the effect of forced social isolation on the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol need to be investigated in future studies.
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spelling pubmed-93855852022-08-18 The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol Haucke, Matthias Golde, Sabrina Saft, Silvia Hellweg, Rainer Liu, Shuyan Heinzel, Stephan Psychoneuroendocrinology Article The COVID-19 pandemic can be characterized as a chronic stressor affecting the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, indexed by glucocorticoids (e.g., cortisol). We investigated whether salivary cortisol level is increased during a lockdown and whether a lockdown condition affects the association between loneliness, specific COVID-19 related stressors and salivary cortisol level. We conducted a smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment (EMA) study with 280 participants in Germany who experienced at least mild loneliness and distress amid COVID-19 from August 2020 to March 2021. We measured their momentary loneliness and COVID-related stressors including worries, information seeking behaviors and feelings of restriction during “no-lockdown” or “lockdown” stages amid COVID-19. Their salivary cortisol was measured 4 times on the last day of a 7-day EMA study. We found a significant increase in salivary cortisol levels during lockdown compared to no-lockdown. Lockdown stage was found to moderate the relationship between momentary loneliness and salivary cortisol level, i.e., loneliness was positively related to cortisol level specifically during lockdown. Mechanisms explaining the effect of forced social isolation on the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol need to be investigated in future studies. Elsevier Ltd. 2022-11 2022-08-18 /pmc/articles/PMC9385585/ /pubmed/36007471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105894 Text en © 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Since January 2020 Elsevier has created a COVID-19 resource centre with free information in English and Mandarin on the novel coronavirus COVID-19. The COVID-19 resource centre is hosted on Elsevier Connect, the company's public news and information website. Elsevier hereby grants permission to make all its COVID-19-related research that is available on the COVID-19 resource centre - including this research content - immediately available in PubMed Central and other publicly funded repositories, such as the WHO COVID database with rights for unrestricted research re-use and analyses in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for free by Elsevier for as long as the COVID-19 resource centre remains active.
spellingShingle Article
Haucke, Matthias
Golde, Sabrina
Saft, Silvia
Hellweg, Rainer
Liu, Shuyan
Heinzel, Stephan
The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol
title The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol
title_full The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol
title_fullStr The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol
title_full_unstemmed The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol
title_short The effects of momentary loneliness and COVID-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis functioning: A lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol
title_sort effects of momentary loneliness and covid-19 stressors on hypothalamic–pituitary adrenal (hpa) axis functioning: a lockdown stage changes the association between loneliness and salivary cortisol
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9385585/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36007471
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2022.105894
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