Association between hair cortisol concentration and perceived stress in female methamphetamine addicts

- Hair cortisol concentration (HCC) as a biomarker of perceived stress has been verified in clinical research.
- However, there is no consensus regarding whether hair cortisol concentration is related with self-reported stress.
- Implicit stress measured by the Association Test (IAT) was employed to clarify previous controversies.
- Results suggested that HCC is strongly related to implicit stress but only weakly related with self-reported stress.

ObjectiveThe present study aims to explore whether hair cortisol concentration is associated with explicit stress or implicit stress in female methamphetamine addicts.MethodsHair samples were collected from 51 female methamphetamine addicts from inpatient addiction treatment programs. Perceived stress was assessed by both explicit and implicit measures through the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Implicit Association Test (IAT), respectively.ResultsThe positive relationship between hair cortisol concentration with D-scores of the IAT reached statistically significant difference. A marginal correlation between hair cortisol concentration and scores of the PSS was observed. Additionally, linear regression analysis indicated that D-scores of the IAT are strongly predictive of hair cortisol concentration.ConclusionHair cortisol concentration is strongly related to implicit stress but only weakly related with explicit stress.