Mental Health
Characterizing stress variability typologies in a racially/ethnically diverse sample of adult participants Shiwani Sapkota* Shiwani Sapkota Allan D. Tate Emilie Ellis Andrea N. Trejo Anna Hochgraf Alicia Kunin-Batson Jerica Berge
Background: Stress is linked to biopsychosocial health outcomes, but the dynamic nature of adults’ stress experiences is not well understood. This study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) as a novel approach to examine adults’ real-time stress experiences and links with individual and family wellbeing.
Methods: Self-report EMA data from the Family Matters study (n=631) were used to evaluate adults’ stress levels and variability, including daily mean and diurnal slope of stress, average between-survey stress change, standard deviation of survey-stress change, and daily stress change variability (volatility; i.e., the stability of daily stress patterns within each day) over a one-week EMA period. Latent class analysis was used to categorize participants based on stress characteristics, and multinomial logistic regression was used to identify predictors of class membership and explore cross-sectional associations with self-reported wellbeing.
Results: A 3-class model (entropy=0.821) revealed distinct typologies of stress variability—low, medium, and high. Relative to adults in low stress variability class, adults in medium stress variability class had higher odds of elevated anxiety (OR=1.55), baseline stress (OR=1.25), and lower family functioning (OR=1.96), and adults in high stress variability class had higher odds of a high number of recent stressful events (OR=1.24) and both elevated anxiety (OR=2.34) and baseline stress (OR=1.35). Coping, self-esteem, and resilience were not linked with class membership. Stress typology was not substantively related to self-reported pain, energy, depression, or adverse childhood experiences based on small effect size r2 (range = 0.01-0.07).
Conclusion: High stress variability profiles were strongly linked with elevated anxiety and recent stressful events. Future research should investigate the long-term links between stress variability class membership and wellbeing, for developing the targeted interventions accordingly.