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Trier social stress test in Indian adolescents

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Abstract

Objective

To test the Trier Social Stress Test for children (TSSTC) in a cohort of Indian adolescents.

Design

Cohort study

Setting

Holdsworth Memorial Hospital, Mysore, India.

Participants

Adolescent children (N=273, 134 males; mean age 13.6 yrs) selected from an ongoing birth cohort; 269 completed the test.

Intervention

Performance of 5-minutes each of public- speaking and mental arithmetic tasks in front of two unfamiliar ‘evaluators’.

Outcome measures

Salivary cortisol concentrations were measured at baseline and at regular intervals after the TSST-C. Continuous measurements of heart rate, finger blood pressure, stroke volume, cardiac output and systemic vascular resistance were carried out before, during and for 10 minutes after the TSSTC using a finger cuff.

Results

Cortisol concentrations [mean increment (SD): 6.1 (6.9) ng/mL], heart rate [4.6 (10.1) bpm], systolic [24.2 (11.6) mmHg] and diastolic blood pressure [16.5 (7.3) mmHg], cardiac output [0.6 (0.7) L/min], stroke volume [4.0 (5.6) mL] and systemic vascular resistance [225 (282) dyn.s/cm5] increased significantly (P<0.001) from baseline after inducing stress.

Conclusions

The TSST-C produces stress-responses in Indian adolescents of a sufficient magnitude to be a useful tool for examining stress physiology and its relationships to disease outcomes in this population.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Epidemiology Research Unit, CSI Holdsworth Memorial Hospital, Mysore, India

    G. V. Krishnaveni, S. R. Veena, M. P. Malathi & H. Upadya

  2. Centre for Cardiovascular Imaging, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, UK

    A. Jones

  3. Diabetes Unit, KEM Hospital Research Centre, Pune, India

    D. S. Bhat

  4. Department of Psychology, University of Trier, Trier, Germany

    D. Hellhammer

  5. St. John’s Research Institute, Bangalore, India

    K. Srinivasan & A. V. Kurpad

  6. MRC Lifecourse Epidemiology Unit, Southampton General Hospital, Southampton, UK

    C. H. D. Fall

  7. Epidemiology Research Unit, CSI Holdsworth Memorial Hospital, PO Box 38, Mandi Mohalla, Mysore, 570 021, India

    G. V. Krishnaveni

Authors
  1. G. V. Krishnaveni
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  2. S. R. Veena
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  3. A. Jones
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  4. D. S. Bhat
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  5. M. P. Malathi
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  6. D. Hellhammer
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  7. K. Srinivasan
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  8. H. Upadya
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  9. A. V. Kurpad
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  10. C. H. D. Fall
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to G. V. Krishnaveni.

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Krishnaveni, G.V., Veena, S.R., Jones, A. et al. Trier social stress test in Indian adolescents. Indian Pediatr 51, 463–467 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13312-014-0437-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13312-014-0437-5

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