ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Women are vulnerable to stress-related disorders. Examinations are a source of stress, triggering emotional, cognitive, and hormonal responses. We examined women's psychological and hormonal stress responses and academic performance according to personality during a real-life examination. METHODS: Female students (N = 66) were divided into two groups based on hierarchical cluster analysis: one cluster characterized by high neuroticism and moderate extraversion (HN-ME; n = 42) and the other by low neuroticism and high extraversion (LN-HE; n = 24). Academic performance, perceived stress, and emotional dysregulation were analyzed. State anxiety, affect, and cortisol release were measured before and on the examination day. RESULTS: The HN-ME cluster was high in perceived stress, emotional dysregulation, and negative affect. This cluster also had higher state anxiety levels two days before and shortly after the examination compared to the LN-HE cluster. Students' cortisol levels were higher on the examination day, and there was a marginal significance of the Cluster factor in the cortisol release regardless of the day of measurement. CONCLUSIONS: Women with high neuroticism and moderate extraversion may be more vulnerable to psychological stress in academic settings but similar to other women in their cortisol response.
ABSTRACT
Background and purpose: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been associated with olfactory dysfunction. The persistent symptoms of anosmia or hyposmia were associated in previous studies with the development of memory impairment and mood disturbances. We aimed to investigate the association between the chronicity of reported olfactory dysfunction and subjective and objective cognitive performance in long-COVID patients and to explore whether their emotional symptoms are related to their cognition. Methods: One hundred twenty-eight long-COVID participants were recruited. Reported symptomatology, subjective memory complaints, anxiety and depression symptomatology, and trait-anxiety were assessed. Subjective memory complaints and mood disturbances were compared among groups of participants with olfactory dysfunction as an acute (AOD), persistent (POD), or nonexistent (NOD) symptom. Seventy-six of the volunteers also participated in a face-to-face session to assess their objective performance on tests of general cognitive function and verbal declarative memory. Objective cognitive performance and mood disturbances were compared among the AOD, POD, and NOD groups. Results: The subjective memory complaints and the anxiety and depression symptoms were similar among the groups, but the score in general cognitive function was lower in the participants with symptoms of acute olfactory dysfunction than in those with no olfactory symptoms at any time. Participants' memory complaints were positively related to their emotional symptoms. The relationship between depressive symptomatology and memory complaints interacted with the olfactory dysfunction, as it only occurred in the participants without symptoms of olfactory dysfunction. Depressive symptomatology and acute olfactory symptoms were negatively associated with general cognitive function and delayed memory performance. The months elapsed from diagnosis to assessment also predicted delayed memory performance. Anxious symptomatology was negatively associated with the immediate ability to recall verbal information in participants who did not present olfactory dysfunction in the acute phase of the infection. Conclusion: Olfactory dysfunction in the acute phase of the infection by COVID-19 is related to cognitive deficits in objective tests, and mood disturbances are associated with self-reported and objective memory. These findings may contribute to further understanding the neuropsychological and emotional aspects of long-COVID.
