Assessing the Repeatability of a Psychological Stress Test
Condition: Stress, Physiological; Stress, Psychological
MeSH terms: Stress, Psychological
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      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.
    


Intervention name(s): Experimental: MMST+
Intervention type(s): Behavioral
Intervention description(s): The format of the MMST will remain the same; however, the white noise, images and math task will be modified to mitigate habituation effects.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Intervention model description: The investigators propose a parallel experimental trial examining physiological and psychological responses to a socio-evaluative stress task (The Mannheim Multicomponent Stress Test; MMST) under laboratory conditions. Participants will be tested on three occasions in a randomised order, with each trial separated by 7 days. On two occasions, participants will be complete a socially evaluated math-based serial addition task whilst simultaneously viewing a series of positive and negative images and in the presence of white noise (duration ~ 5 minutes). On the other occasion, participants will rest quietly and will be exposed to a short film and some images that are not designed to induce anxiety or stress for the same duration as the stress test in the stress induction room. The non-stress control condition, will occur either 1-week preceding or 1-week following both MMST trials, thereby controlling for order effects influencing baseline physiological and psychological outcome measures.
Masking: Single (Outcomes Assessor)
Primary purpose: Basic Science