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Resilience and personality as predictors of the biological stress load during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany.

ABSTRACT: Since the Covid-19 outbreak, pandemic-specific stressors have potentiated the-already severe-stress load across the world. However, stress is more than an adverse state, and chronic exposure is causally involved in the development of mental and physical disease. We ask the question whether resilience and the Big Five personality traits predict the biological stress response to the first lockdown in Germany. In a prospective, longitudinal, observational study, N = 80 adult volunteers completed an internet-based survey prior to the first Covid-19-related fatality in Germany (T0), during the first lockdown period (T1), and during the subsequent period of contact restrictions (T2). Hair strands for the assessment of systemic cortisol and cortisone levels were collected at T2. Higher neuroticism predicted higher hair cortisol, cortisone and subjective stress levels. Higher extraversion predicted higher hair cortisone levels. Resilience showed no effects on subjective or physiological stress markers. Our study provides longitudinal evidence that neuroticism and extraversion have predictive utility for the accumulation of biological stress over the course of the pandemic. While in pre-pandemic times individuals high in neuroticism are typically at risk for worse health outcomes, extraverted individuals tend to be protected. We conclude that, in the pandemic context, we cannot simply generalize from pre-pandemic knowledge. Neurotic individuals may currently suffer due to their general emotional lability. Extraverted individuals may primarily be socially stressed. Individualized stress management programs need to be developed, and offered in a lockdown-friendly format, to minimize the stress burden caused by Covid-19 or future pandemics and to protect the most severely affected individuals from the development of stress-associated disease.

SUBMITTER: Engert V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8401367 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has led to physical distancing measures to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Evidence on contact dynamics in different socioeconomic groups is still sparse. This study aimed to investigate the association of socioeconomic status with private and professional contact reductions in the first COVID-19 wave in Germany.MethodsData from two especially affected municipalities were derived from the population-based cross-sectional seroepidemiological CORONA-MONITORING lokal study (data collection May-July 2020). The study sample (n = 3,637) was restricted to working age (18-67 years). We calculated the association of educational and occupational status (low, medium, high) with self-reported private and professional contact reductions with respect to former contact levels in the first wave of the pandemic. Multivariate Poisson regressions were performed to estimate prevalence ratios (PR) adjusted for municipality, age, gender, country of birth, household size, contact levels before physical distancing measures, own infection status, contact to SARS-CoV-2 infected people and working remotely.ResultsThe analyses showed significant differences in the initial level of private and professional contacts by educational and occupational status. Less private contact reductions with lower educational status (PR low vs. high = 0,79 [CI = 0.68-0.91], p = 0.002; PR medium vs. high = 0,93 [CI = 0.89-0.97], p = 0.001) and less professional contact reductions with lower educational status (PR low vs. high = 0,87 [CI = 0.70-1.07], p = 0.179; PR medium vs. high = 0,89 [CI = 0.83-0.95], p = 0.001) and lower occupational status (PR low vs. high = 0,62 [CI = 0.55-0.71], p < 0.001; PR medium vs. high = 0,82 [CI = 0.77-0.88], p < 0.001) were observed.ConclusionsOur results indicate disadvantages for groups with lower socioeconomic status in private and professional contact reductions in the first wave of the pandemic. This may be associated with the higher risk of infection among individuals in lower socioeconomic groups. Preventive measures that a) adequately explain the importance of contact restrictions with respect to varying living and working conditions and b) facilitate the implementation of these reductions especially in the occupational setting seem necessary to better protect structurally disadvantaged groups during epidemics.

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Resilience and personality as predictors of the biological stress load during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in Germany.

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