Impact of a social skills program on children's stress: A cluster randomized trial
Larose et al.
The finding, in our words
A social skills intervention programme delivered in child care centres produced a significant interaction with time of day for diurnal cortisol secretion in preschool children (p = 0.04), with the intervention group showing more typical decreasing cortisol patterns throughout the day. This demonstrates that saliva-based cortisol monitoring in decentralised settings can detect clinically meaningful changes in stress physiology among paediatric populations.
A paraphrase to the Library’s standard, never the abstract. The source is one link away and is always the authority.
This study used home self-collected saliva samples to successfully monitor cytokines and cortisol in mothers and infants, finding that a community singing intervention significantly reduced salivary interleukin-6 levels in mothers with postnatal depression.
Kirkpatrick et al., Brain, behavior, and immunity (paywalled) · source ↗
The online Trier Social Stress Test produced cortisol responses in 63% of adolescents with an effect size of 0.57 from baseline to peak, matching in-person test results. This remote protocol allows HPA axis assessment without laboratory visits, making it viable for decentralised research and populations distant from research centres.
Gunnar et al., Psychoneuroendocrinology (paywalled) · source ↗
The study determined that an at-home saliva collection protocol using the passive drool method was feasible for Black women with histories of abuse, with 84% of participants completing at least one full day of adherent sampling. While the decentralised approach yielded usable cortisol data, women with histories of forced sex exposure showed lower protocol adherence scores.
Tsuyuki et al., Interactive journal of medical research (paywalled) · source ↗
In a study of 46 perinatal nicotine users, dried blood spots and saliva were used weekly to measure reproductive hormones, finding that lower postpartum estradiol and greater peripartum declines in oxytocin were associated with increased nicotine craving and use. This demonstrates the feasibility of decentralised microsampling and remote surveys for longitudinal hormone tracking in vulnerable populations.
Allen et al., Drug and alcohol dependence reports (paywalled) · source ↗
Long-term sleep quality improved significantly during an internet-based intervention for major depressive disorder. Patients with poor sleep initially showed blunted cortisol awakening responses, which normalised as sleep quality improved, demonstrating that self-collected saliva can track biological stress changes in decentralised mental health care.
Laufer et al., Comprehensive psychoneuroendocrinology · source ↗