Investigation of Perceived Stress During COVID-19 Pandemic Self-Isolation Periods

Background and Objectives: The study purpose was to analyze possible health consequences of self-isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic, aiming to evaluate diagnostics methods. Specifically, we analyzed perceived stress of self-isolation with the aim of evaluating the suitability of psychological and laboratory diagnostics methods for routine clinical practice. In order to achieve the aim of the study, the following objectives were formulated: to compare the results of psychological and laboratory diagnostic methods between case and control groups; and to evaluate associations between psychological and laboratory stress indicators separately in case and control groups. Materials and Methods: The research study consisted of control and case groups of 28 volunteers each. The main selection criterion for the case group was self-isolation due to COVID-19 and a maximum period of 3 months after post-isolation, while the control group had to be of a similar age but did not have to be isolated or self-isolated. Both groups consisted of young (18-24 years) individuals. All participants had to fill out a Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaire and were subjected to a laboratory test for stress indicators (alpha-amylase, secretory cortisol, and immunoglobulin A) from a saliva sample. Results: A comparison of the laboratory stress indicator scores for both study groups revealed statistically significant differences between the clinical subgroups, i.e., the distributions of the control and case groups were significantly different within the affected case group and control. The values obtained for study groups and PSS scores showed no discrepancies between the two investigation methods, i.e., PSS assessment and laboratory stress indicators results. The PSS values between the clinical groups were significantly different from each other, suggesting that the laboratory stress indicator scores differed but were consistent or complementary to the PSS results. A separate comparison of age and stress indicator levels in the control group revealed a correlation between age and PSS scores, indicating that younger individuals were more prone to subjective perception of moderate stress. Conclusions: The results showed that COVID-19 self-isolation during quarantine affected people's psychological health. Using psychological examination and laboratory stress indicators, the results of the case group reliably differed from the results of the control group, allowing us to conclude that self-isolation more often caused moderate chronic stress, with or without decompensation. Besides the main study objective, we observed that laboratory stress biomarkers may be acceptable for broader clinical application during routine psychological treatment. The clinical application of laboratory stress biomarkers had been validated previously by another method, i.e., psychological investigation using PSS.