Assessing the Repeatability of a Psychological Stress Test

Liverpool John Moores University

Status

Completed

Conditions

Stress, Psychological

Stress, Physiological

Treatments

Behavioral: Experimental: MMST+

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Industry

Identifiers

NCT04714450

ORION Study 1A

Details and patient eligibility

About

To establish the efficacy and repeatability of a suitable psychological stress test. The Mannheim Multicomponent Stress Test (MMST) is a validated laboratory stress test that combines cognitive, emotional, acoustic and motivational stress components. Despite the test increasing self-reported levels of stress, meaningful changes in saliva cortisol are typically observed in only half of all participants. In addition, the MMST is susceptible to habituation of the cortisol response upon repeated exposures, limiting its current usefulness for repeated measures. Given the multicomponent nature of the MMST, there is potential for components of the test to be manipulated to overcome these limitations i.e., increase the magnitude of the saliva cortisol response and mitigate against habituation effects. In addition, a supplementary topic of interest is to what extent cortisol responses to acute laboratory stress tests, like the MMST, relate to the well described rise in morning cortisol ~30 minutes after awakening. This may be of clinical relevance given that blunted cortisol response upon awakening and in response to acute psychological stress tests have been associated with poor health outcomes.

The primary objective of the current study is to investigate if the MMST elicits a meaningful increase in saliva cortisol.

The secondary objective is to investigate the efficacy of mitigation strategies to overcome habituation to the MMST.

A supplementary objective is to to investigate the relationship between the saliva cortisol response upon awakening and the saliva cortisol response to the MMST.

Enrollment

24 patients

Sex

All

Ages

18 to 35 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Participants who...

have read and signed the study informed consent
are healthy, recreationally active men and women aged 18-35 years
test negative for coronavirus (COVID-19)
are willing to provide saliva samples throughout and complete the MMST through the duration of the study
are using monophasic birth control (women only)

Exclusion criteria

Participants who...

have a recent history or are a current smoker
are currently taking prescription/Over-the-counter medication
consume ≥ 91 units of alcohol per month
have a clinically diagnosed history of cardiovascular and/or metabolic disease including diabetes and abnormal blood pressure
are pregnant
have a recent or ongoing viral or bacterial illness in past 4 weeks
test positive for coronavirus (COVID-19)
have a clinically diagnosed psychiatric disorder
have a clinically diagnosed sleeping disorder
have a clinically diagnosed gambling addiction
BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2 - calculated in the online health screening questionnaire
report unusually high levels of recent or ongoing life stress over the last month; as assessed by the perceived stress scale (PSS) i.e. rating ≥ 13 indicates high perception of recent and ongoing life stress
Endurance trained or engage in ≥3.5 hours of physical activity a week