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Higher Perceived Stress but Lower Cortisol Levels Found among Young Greek Adults Living in a Stressful Social Environment in Comparison with Swedish Young Adults

Overview of attention for article published in PLOS ONE, September 2013
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  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (93rd percentile)

Mentioned by

news
5 news outlets
blogs
1 blog
twitter
10 X users
video
1 YouTube creator

Citations

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52 Dimensions

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151 Mendeley
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Title
Higher Perceived Stress but Lower Cortisol Levels Found among Young Greek Adults Living in a Stressful Social Environment in Comparison with Swedish Young Adults
Published in
PLOS ONE, September 2013
DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0073828
Pubmed ID
Authors

Åshild Faresjö, Elvar Theodorsson, Marios Chatziarzenis, Vasiliki Sapouna, Hans-Peter Claesson, Jenny Koppner, Tomas Faresjö

Abstract

The worldwide financial crisis during recent years has raised concerns of negative public health effects. This is notably evident in southern Europe. In Greece, where the financial austerity has been especially pronounced, the prevalence of mental health problems including depression and suicide has increased, and outbreaks of infectious diseases have risen. The main objective in this study was to investigate whether different indicators of health and stress levels measured by a new biomarker based on cortisol in human hair were different amongst comparable Greek and Swedish young adults, considering that Sweden has been much less affected by the recent economic crises. In this cross-sectional comparative study, young adults from the city of Athens in Greece (n = 124) and from the city of Linkoping in Sweden (n = 112) participated. The data collection comprised answering a questionnaire with different health indicators and hair samples being analyzed for the stress hormone cortisol, a biomarker with the ability to retrospectively measure long-term cortisol exposure. The Greek young adults reported significantly higher perceived stress (p<0.0001), had experienced more serious life events (p = 0.002), had lower hope for the future (p<0.0001), and had significantly more widespread symptoms of depression (p<0.0001) and anxiety (p<0.0001) than the Swedes. But, the Greeks were found to have significantly lower cortisol levels (p<0.0001) than the Swedes, and this difference was still significant in a multivariate regression (p<0.0001), after adjustments for potential intervening variables. A variety of factors related to differences in the physical or socio-cultural environment between the two sites, might possibly explain this finding. However, a potential biological mechanism is that long-term stress exposure could lead to a lowering of the cortisol levels. This study points out a possible hypothesis that the cortisol levels of the Greek young adults might have been suppressed and their HPA-axis down-regulated after living in a stressful environment with economic and social pressure.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 10 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 151 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Germany 1 <1%
Honduras 1 <1%
Brazil 1 <1%
Canada 1 <1%
Spain 1 <1%
Japan 1 <1%
Unknown 145 96%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 28 19%
Student > Ph. D. Student 21 14%
Student > Master 16 11%
Student > Bachelor 15 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 9 6%
Other 26 17%
Unknown 36 24%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 34 23%
Psychology 31 21%
Social Sciences 11 7%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 8 5%
Economics, Econometrics and Finance 6 4%
Other 22 15%
Unknown 39 26%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 47. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 January 2023.
All research outputs
#872,768
of 25,202,494 outputs
Outputs from PLOS ONE
#11,505
of 218,633 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#6,783
of 186,095 outputs
Outputs of similar age from PLOS ONE
#320
of 4,908 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,202,494 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 96th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 218,633 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.7. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 186,095 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 4,908 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.