Assessment of Salivary Cortisol and Perceived Stress in Teachers

Regisnei Aparecido de Oliveira Silva^1, , Lídia Andreu Guillo² and Nestor Persio Alvim Agrícola³

¹Department of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Jataí, Goiás, Brazil

²Department of Biological Sciences, Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Goiânia, Goiás, Brazil

³Department of Physical Education, Federal University of Goiás (UFG), Jataí, Goiás, Brazil

Cite this paper:
Regisnei Aparecido de Oliveira Silva, Lídia Andreu Guillo and Nestor Persio Alvim Agrícola. Assessment of Salivary Cortisol and Perceived Stress in Teachers. American Journal of Educational Research. 2018; 6(9):1264-1270. doi: 10.12691/education-6-9-4

Abstract

Background: This study aimed at correlating the levels of salivary cortisol and perceived stress in male teachers, in three periods of the academic year (March, July, December). Methods: The collection of saliva for cortisol measurement was performed at 6:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., and 5:30 p.m. on the same day that the BPSS-10 (Perceived Stress Scale, Brazilian version) was applied. The total concentration of cortisol was calculated using the area under the curve with respect to ground (AUC_g). Results: When comparing the periods of the academic year, the mean stress score obtained in the month of March (16.46 ± 5.36) and December (17.54 ± 6.56) showed a significant difference compared with the mean results obtained in July (10.77 ± 5.64; p <0.01 and p <0.001. The AUC_g value showed no significant difference between the periods analyzed (1.145 ± 0.450 µg/dL, 0.916 ± 0.341 µg/dL, and 1.031 ± 0.374 µg/dL, respectively). When analyzing the correlation between BPSS-10 values and total salivary cortisol throughout the school year, no statistical significance was found according to Pearson correlation coefficient (p = 0.554). Conclusions: The results suggest that the teachers, during the vacation period, might not perceive the physiological reactions of stress, so these reactions were not identified by the BPSS-10 used.

Keywords:
salivary cortisol stress teachers public school

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