Baliyan Shishir, Cimadevilla José Manuel, Pulopulos Matias M, Castillejo Leyre, Sandi Carmen, Venero César
COGNI-UNED, Department of Psychobiology, Faculty of Psychology, UNED, Madrid, Spain.
Department of Psychology, University of Almería, Almería, Spain.
Front Psychol. 2022 Apr 28;13:874232. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.874232. eCollection 2022.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to various government-imposed limitations on social interaction and strict home confinement. Such involuntary social-distancing policies can exacerbate feelings of loneliness and alter emotional well-being. Dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis is a potential mechanism for loneliness' deleterious health effects. In this study, we explored whether pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol output (AUC ), a measure of HPA axis function, may predict the propensity to changes in loneliness during long-term COVID-19 home confinement and if extraversion would moderate this relationship. This association has been explored by analysing the impact of COVID-19 pandemic and strict home confinement on social and emotional loneliness in 45 Spanish young adults. Diurnal cortisol levels were measured from five saliva samples obtained across a day just before the pandemic, and data about participants' perceived loneliness, empathic state, extraversion, and prospective volunteering were obtained both before and during the confinement. Participants' social and family loneliness increased during long-term strict home confinement, while prospective volunteering tendencies and extraversion decreased. Importantly, after adjusting for relevant confounders, moderation analyses revealed that in young adults with high pre-pandemic extraversion, a higher AUC predicted a larger increase in social loneliness during confinement, while in individuals with low extraversion, AUC was negatively related to change in loneliness. Our findings highlight the utility of pre-pandemic diurnal cortisol output in predicting the social impact of COVID-19 home confinement, presenting this hormone as a potential biomarker for identification of at-risk groups during public health crises.
2019年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行导致政府对社交互动施加了各种限制，并实行了严格的居家隔离。这种非自愿的社交距离政策会加剧孤独感，并改变情绪健康状况。下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺皮质（HPA）轴功能失调是孤独对健康产生有害影响的一种潜在机制。在本研究中，我们探讨了疫情前的昼夜皮质醇分泌量（曲线下面积[AUC]）（一种衡量HPA轴功能的指标）是否可以预测长期COVID-19居家隔离期间孤独感变化的倾向，以及外向性是否会调节这种关系。我们通过分析COVID-19大流行和严格的居家隔离对45名西班牙年轻人社交孤独感和情感孤独感的影响，来探究这种关联。在疫情前一天从采集的五份唾液样本中测量昼夜皮质醇水平，并在隔离前和隔离期间获取有关参与者感知到的孤独感、共情状态、外向性和未来志愿服务情况的数据。在长期严格的居家隔离期间，参与者的社交孤独感和家庭孤独感增加，而未来志愿服务倾向和外向性降低。重要的是，在对相关混杂因素进行调整后，调节分析显示，在疫情前外向性较高的年轻人中，较高的AUC预测隔离期间社交孤独感的增加幅度更大，而在低外向性个体中，AUC与孤独感的变化呈负相关。我们的研究结果突出了疫情前昼夜皮质醇分泌量在预测COVID-19居家隔离的社会影响方面的作用，表明这种激素可作为在公共卫生危机期间识别高危人群的潜在生物标志物。
