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Perceived stress, health status, and the activity of neutrophils in undergraduates over one academic year
Author(s) -
Ellard D.R.,
Barlow J.H.,
Mian R.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
stress and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1532-2998
pISSN - 1532-3005
DOI - 10.1002/smi.1061
Subject(s) - psychology , stress (linguistics) , clinical psychology , medicine , philosophy , linguistics
Twenty‐eight undergraduates participated in a 12‐month (one academic year) study and were tested on six occasions to examine the effects of perceived stress on the activity of neutrophils. The six testing periods were selected to encompass variation in academic typical experiences over 1 year. At each time point, participants gave a small finger‐stick sample of blood before completing standard measure of perceived stress and health. Activity of neutrophils was determined from the whole bloods' capacity to reduce nitro‐blue tetrazolium (NBT) and was presented as percentage of NBT positive cells. Results showed that there were significant correlations between perceived stress levels and NBT positive cells (p < 0.05) at all six testing periods, with surprisingly large effects size. Further analysis (Fisher's Z averaging analysis) revealed the robust nature of this association. In addition, there were significant correlations between NBT positive cells and participants' current state of health on three of the six occasions: generally, as perceived stress increased the percentage of NBT positive neutrophils increased and health status decreased. The results support the hypothesis that stress may affect the activity of neutrophils, which in turn may influence health. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.