Change in toddlers’ cortisol activity during a year in childcare. Associations with childcare quality, child temperament, well-being and maternal education

Figures & data

Figure 1. Flow chart of participant recruitment.

Figure 2. Mean untransformed cortisol in nmol/l.

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of untransformed cortisol.

Month	Time	n	Mean	SD	Median	Minimum	Maximum
September	Morning 1	137	4.91	3.95	3.92	0.99	23.88
	Afternoon 1	129	5.32	3.62	4.22	0.43	21.84
	Evening 1	132	2.58	4.08	1.19	0.01	25.45
	Morning 2	127	5.60	4.41	4.47	0.61	27.42
	Afternoon 2	124	6.18	4.62	4.91	0.70	26.45
	Evening 2	124	2.40	3.52	1.25	0.01	22.12
January	Morning 1	133	5.54	4.48	4.22	0.38	25.31
	Afternoon 1	126	5.51	3.29	4.79	0.44	21.89
	Morning 2	127	4.59	3.10	3.94	0.68	26.32
	Afternoon 2	118	5.16	3.62	4.03	0.86	21.61
Home	Morning 1	109	4.95	4.55	3.69	0.15	29.05
	Afternoon 1	103	4.17	4.72	2.82	0.28	29.13
	Morning 2	102	5.10	4.40	3.95	0.64	26.86
	Afternoon 2	98	4.00	4.71	2.32	0.065	24.28
June	Morning 1	131	4.82	3.53	4.18	1.09	27.48
	Afternoon 1	125	4.71	3.28	3.94	1.04	22.59
	Evening 1	92	2.17	3.46	1.20	0.02	22.18
	Morning 2	123	4.71	3.51	3.79	0.67	29.26
	Afternoon 2	109	4.88	4.40	3.55	0.72	28.35
	Evening 2	95	2.37	3.11	1.33	0.07	17.20
Valid n (listwise)		16

Table 2. Information on childcare group quality for the 31 childcare groups.

	n	Mean	SD	Min	Max
CLASS: EBS	31	5.58	1.04	3	7
CLASS: ESL	31	3.37	1.12	1.2	6.13
Group size	27	10.93	1.94	8	16
Pedagogue ratio	26	0.41	0.13	0.25	0.75
Valid n (listwise)	26

Table 3. Demographic information (mother n = 155, missing = 20; father n = 149, missing = 54).

	n mother (%)	n father (%)
Language background
Norwegian	116 (86.0)	84 (88.4)
Europe or North America	9 (6.6)	5 (5.3)
Other	10 (7.4)	6 (6.3)
Marital status
In a relationship	127 (94.1)	94 (98.9)
Single	8 (5.9)	1 (1.1)
Education
Elementary school (9–10 years)	1 (0.7)	4 (4.2)
Finished secondary school	25 (18.5)	25 (26.3)
Up to 4 years with university education	44 (32.6)	28 (29.5)
More than 4 years of university education	65 (48.2)	38 (40.0)
Annual household income before tax
Under 200,000 NOK*	3 (2.2)	1 (1.1)
200,000-599,000 NOK	14 (10.4)	14 (14.7)
600,000-999,000 NOK	49 (36.3)	26 (27.4)
More than 1,000,000 NOK	69 (51.1)	54 (56.8)

*In 2019, 1 NOK equaled approximately 0.1 USD.

Table 4. Estimated marginal means of log10-transformed cortisol in childcare.

Month	Time	n	Mean	95% Confidence Interval
September	Morning	264	0.576	0.530	to	0.622
	Afternoon	253	0.637	0.590	to	0.684
	Evening	256	0.071	0.024	to	0.117
January	Morning	260	0.622	0.579	to	0.665
	Afternoon	244	0.659	0.615	to	0.704
	Evening
June	Morning	254	0.652	0.605	to	0.699
	Afternoon	234	0.637	0.589	to	0.686
	Evening	187	0.187	0.134	to	0.239

Figure 3. Estimated marginal means of log10-transformed cortisol (nmol/l) with p-values for change compared to morning and p-values (*) for change compared to September.

Table 5. Descriptive statistics of child characteristics.

	n	%/Mean	SD	Min	Max
Gender	156	–	–	–	–
Female	81	51.9	–	–	–
Male	75	48.1	–	–	–
Age in months at T1	145	21.75	6.31	10	32
EAS Shyness	132	12.11	3.05	5	22
EAS Emotionality	133	14.08	3.31	6	23
EAS Activity	134	19.76	2.98	13	25
LICW-D	145	4.26	0.49	2.83	5.00
Valid n (listwise)	125	–	–	–	–

Figure 4. Estimated marginal means of log10-transformed cortisol (nmol/l) in childcare for children with a well-being score below the median.

Figure 5. Estimated marginal means of log10-transformed cortisol (nmol/l) in childcare for children with a well-being score above the median.

Figure 6. Estimated marginal means of log10-transformed cortisol (nmol/l) in childcare for children with an activity score below the median.

Figure 7. Estimated marginal means of log10-transformed cortisol (nmol/l) in childcare for children with an activity score at or above the median.