Children’s hair cortisol as a biomarker of stress at school: a follow-up study

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of HCC in wave 1 (transition grade 1) and wave 2 (transition grade 3).

			Correlations
	Mean	SD	W1 Pre	W1 Post	W2 Pre	W2 Post
Wave 1
Pre	29.29	14.81	–
Post	32.01	12.84	.80**
Wave 2
Pre	12.61	10.11	.36*	.37*
Post	16.54	12.78	.22	.24	.52**

HCC: hair cortisol concentrations; W1: wave 1; W2: wave 2.

*p < .05; **p < .01

Figure 1. HCC ratio of change in waves 1 and 2. Note: A = increase in HCC in waves 1 and 2, n = 14. B = decrease in HCC in waves 1 and 2, n = 1. C = increase in wave 1, but decrease in wave 2, n = 6. D = decrease in wave 1 but increase in wave 2, n = 9. HCC: hair cortisol concentrations.

Table 2. Descriptive statistics of child characteristics and correlations with hair cortisol concentrations wave 2.

			Correlations cortisol wave 2
	M	SD	Pre	Post	Change
Social fearfulness	2.52	.90	–.12	–.19	–.05
Academic achievement	64.63	21.83	.12	–.08	–.19
Inhibitory control	8.50	1.38	.11	–.24	–.31

Figure 2. HCC levels of children scoring high or low on inhibitory control. HCC: hair cortisol concentrations.

Table 3. Inhibitory control predicting post HCC.

	Step 1 (R^2 = .36*)				Step 2 (R^2 = .50*)
	B	SEB	β	p	B	SEB	β	p
Constant	1.13	0.05			1.14	0.04
Pre HCC	0.57	0.16	0.55	<.01	0.47	0.15	0.46	<.01
Inhibitory control	0.07	0.03	0.30	.06	0.07	0.03	0.30	.04
Pre HCC * inhibitory control					0.31	0.11	0.40	.01

HCC: hair cortisol concentrations.

*p < .05.