Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-cphqk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-05T01:33:08.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

9 - Study design and data analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 September 2009

By
Gary D. James  and
Gillian H. Ice
Edited by
Gillian H. Ice  and
Gary D. James
Gillian H. Ice
Affiliation:
Ohio University
Gary D. James
Affiliation:
State University of New York, Binghamton
Get access

Summary

Stress implies that a physiological or psychological change has occurred within a subject or that, because of a broader ecological stressor, measurable biological differences between subjects or groups of subjects exist. A variety of study designs can be employed to detect the effects of stress on biology and behavior in the field, although these variants fall under two general categories: 1) natural experiments with an a priori ecological framework and 2) model building or testing where there is no ecological framework per se, but rather a framework of expected relationships based on the results of prior field and/or laboratory research. Depending upon whether a field study of stress is designed to evaluate individual change or group differences, single or multiple measurements per subject can be evaluated.

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss, from a practical standpoint, research design and analytic approaches and techniques that are useful for field studies of stress. The intent is to provide researchers with information on how to develop a meaningful stress study and, hopefully, some insight into how best to evaluate stress-related data. It is not the intent of this chapter to detail specific statistical procedures; however, we will, when necessary, make reference to them.

Research design and the constraints of data collection

In conducting any study of stress response in the field (outside the laboratory), it is best to proceed with a plan in mind, one that will guide not only what data will be collected, but also one that is tied to the analytic technique (statistics) that will be used to test the study hypotheses.

Type
Chapter
Information
Measuring Stress in Humans
A Practical Guide for the Field
 , pp. 226 - 245
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brondolo, G., Karlin, W., Alexander, K., Bubrow, , A. and Schwartz, J. (1999). Workday communication and ambulatory blood pressure: implications for the reactivity hypothesis. Psychophysiology, 36, 86–94.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, D. E. (1981). General stress in anthropological fieldwork. American Anthropologist, 83, 74–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, D. E. (1982). Physiological stress and culture change in a group of Filipino-Americans: a preliminary investigation. Annals of Human Biology, 9, 553–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, D. E. and James, G. D. (2000). Physiological stress responses in Filipino-American immigrant nurses: the effects of residence time, lifestyle and job strain. Psychosomatic Medicine, 62, 394–400.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, D. E., James, G. D. and Nordloh, L. (1998). Comparison of factors affecting daily variation of blood pressure in Filipino-American and Caucasian nurses in Hawaii. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 106, 373–83.3.0.CO;2-N>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brown, D. E., James, G. D., Nordloh, L. and Jones, A. A. (2003). Job strain and physiological stress responses in nurses and nurse's aides: predictors of daily blood pressure variability. Blood Pressure Monitoring, 8, 237–42.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dettenborn, L., James, G. D., Berge-Landry, H.et al. (2005). Heightened cortisol responses to daily stress in working women at familial risk for breast cancer. Biological Psychology, 69, 167–79.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Freedland, K. E. and Carney, R. M. (1992). Data management and accountability in behavioral and biomedical research. American Psychologist, 47, 640–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Garruto, R. M., Little, M. A., James, G. D. and Brown, D. E. (1999). Natural experimental models: the global search for biomedical paradigms among traditional, modernizing and modern populations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), 96, 10536–43.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, S. B. and Salkind, N. J. (2005). Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh: Analyzing and Understanding Data, 4th edn, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Harrison, G. A. and Jefferies, D. J. (1977). Human biology in urban environments: a review of research strategies. In MAB Technical Note 3, ed. Baker, P. T.. Paris: UNESCO, pp. 65–82.Google Scholar
Ice, G. H. (in press). Factors influencing cortisol level and slope among community dwelling older adults in Minnesota. Journal of Cross Cultural Gerontology, In press.Google Scholar
Ice, G. H., James, G. D. and Crews, D. E. (2003). Blood pressure variation in the institutionalized elderly. Collegium Antropologicum, 27, 47–55.Google ScholarPubMed
Jacob, R. G., Thayer, J. F., Manuck, S. B.et al. (1999). Ambulatory blood pressure responses and the circumplex model of mood: a 4-day study. Psychosomatic Medicine, 61, 319–33.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
James, G. D. (1991). Blood pressure response to the daily stressors of urban environments: methodology, basic concepts and significance. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 34, 189–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, G. D. (2001). Evaluation of journals, diaries, and indexes of worksite and environmental stress. In Contemporary Cardiology: Blood Pressure Monitoring in Cardiovascular Medicine and Therapeutics, ed. White, W. B.. Totowa, NJ: Humana Press, pp. 29–44.Google Scholar
James, G. D. and Bovbjerg, D. H. (2001). Age and perceived stress independently influence daily blood pressure levels and variation among women employed in wage jobs. American Journal of Human Biology, 13, 268–74.3.0.CO;2-Z>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
James, G. D., Jenner, D. A., Harrison, G. A. and Baker, P. T. (1985). Differences in catecholamine excretion rates, blood pressure and lifestyle among young Western Samoan men. Human Biology, 57, 635–47.Google ScholarPubMed
James, G. D., Pecker, M. S., Pickering, T. G.et al. (1994). Extreme changes in dietary sodium effect the daily variability and level of blood pressure in borderline hypertensive patients. American Journal of Human Biology, 6, 283–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
James, G. D., Schlussel, Y. R. and Pickering, T. G. (1993). The association between daily blood pressure and catecholamine variability in normotensive working women. Psychosomatic Medicine, 55, 55–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
James, G. D., Yee, L. S., Harshfield, G. A., Blank, S. and Pickering, T. G. (1986). The influence of happiness, anger and anxiety on the blood pressure of borderline hypertensives. Psychosomatic Medicine, 48(6), 502–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McDade, T. W., Stallings, J. F. and Worthman, C. M. (2000). Culture change and stress in Western Samoan youth: Methodological issues in the cross-cultural study of stress and immune function. American Journal of Human Biology, 12, 792–802.3.0.CO;2-F>CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGarvey, S. T. and Baker, P. T. (1979). The effects of modernization and migration on Samoan blood pressures. Human Biology, 51, 461–79.Google ScholarPubMed
McGarvey, S. T. and Schendel, D. E. (1986). Blood pressure of Samoans. In The Changing Samoans: Behavior and Health in Transition, ed. Baker, P. T., Hanna, J. M. and Baker, T. S.. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 350–93.Google Scholar
Montgomery, D. C. (1976). Design and Analysis of Experiments. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Neter, J. and Wasserman, W. (1974). Applied Linear Statistical Models. Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin.Google Scholar
Pearson, J. D., James, G. D. and Brown, D. E. (1993). Stress and changing lifestyles in the Pacific: physiological stress responses of Samoans in rural and urban settings. American Journal of Human Biology, 5, 49–60.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pickering, T. G. (1991). Ambulatory Monitoring and Blood Pressure Variability. London: Science.Google Scholar
Pollard, T. M., Ungpakorn, G. and Harrison, G. A. (1996). Epinephrine and cortisol responses to work: a test of the models of Frankenhaeuser and Karasek. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 18, 229–37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwartz, G. E.Weinberg, D. A.and Singer, J. A. (1981). Cardiovascular differentiation of happiness, sadness, anger and fear following imagery and exercise. Psychosomatic Medicine, 43, 343–64.CrossRef
Schwartz, J. G. and Stone, A. A. (1998). Strategies for analyzing ecological momentary assessment data. Health Psychology, 17, 6–16.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schwartz, J. E., Warren, K. and Pickering, T. G. (1994). Mood, location and physical position as predictors of ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate: Application of a multilevel random effects model. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 16, 210–20.Google Scholar
Sterling, P. (2004). Principles of allostasis: optimal design, predictive regulation, pathophysiology, and rational therapeutics. In Allostasis, Homeostasis, and the Costs of Physiological Adaptation, ed. Schulkin, J.. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 17–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eck, M., Berkhof, H., Nicolson, N. and Sulon, J. (1996). The effects of perceived stress, traits, mood states, and stressful daily events on salivary cortisol. Psychosomatic Medicine, 58, 447–58.Google ScholarPubMed

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×