TY - JOUR
T1 - Design and validation of an electrophysiological based tool to assess chronic stress. Case study
T2 - burnout syndrome in caregivers
AU - Aguiló Mir, Sira
AU - García Pagès, Esther
AU - López Barbeito, Beatriz
AU - Ribeiro, Thais Castro
AU - Garzón-Rey, Jorge M.
AU - Aguiló Llobet, Jordi
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Copyright:
Copyright 2020 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2020
Y1 - 2020
N2 - Caregiver burnout syndrome is an increasingly seen condition, although the subjective nature of self-administered psychometric tests and the lack of a consensual diagnostic tool might hinder a proper diagnosis. The availability of objective psychosomatic measures of stress might facilitate the early diagnosis and clinical management of these patients. For this reason, the aim of this work was to develop a quantitative tool to evaluate the stress level of caregivers in a noninvasive and repeatable manner. An observational, controlled, matched study was designed including a group of 38 principal caregivers of chronic patients and a control group of 38 non-caregivers. Psychometric, biochemical, and electrophysiological data were analyzed along with sociodemographic data. A quantitative chronic stress reference scale (CSRs) was constructed based on the weighted contribution of several psychometric and biochemical variables and afterwards, a predictive psychosomatic model (ESBSm) correlated with CSRs was elaborated from extracted variables of several electrophysiological signals monitored for 10 min. The resulting CSR scale shows a high power to discriminate caregivers from the control group while the ESBSm shows a 79% correlation with the CSR scale validated through a 5-fold process. Therefore, the results demonstrate that the ESBS model is an objective and validated tool to diagnose the degree of stress linked to burnout in caregivers of chronic patients from a 10-min session of noninvasive monitoring with a reliability equivalent to the questionnaires currently used to quantify stress in caregivers.
AB - Caregiver burnout syndrome is an increasingly seen condition, although the subjective nature of self-administered psychometric tests and the lack of a consensual diagnostic tool might hinder a proper diagnosis. The availability of objective psychosomatic measures of stress might facilitate the early diagnosis and clinical management of these patients. For this reason, the aim of this work was to develop a quantitative tool to evaluate the stress level of caregivers in a noninvasive and repeatable manner. An observational, controlled, matched study was designed including a group of 38 principal caregivers of chronic patients and a control group of 38 non-caregivers. Psychometric, biochemical, and electrophysiological data were analyzed along with sociodemographic data. A quantitative chronic stress reference scale (CSRs) was constructed based on the weighted contribution of several psychometric and biochemical variables and afterwards, a predictive psychosomatic model (ESBSm) correlated with CSRs was elaborated from extracted variables of several electrophysiological signals monitored for 10 min. The resulting CSR scale shows a high power to discriminate caregivers from the control group while the ESBSm shows a 79% correlation with the CSR scale validated through a 5-fold process. Therefore, the results demonstrate that the ESBS model is an objective and validated tool to diagnose the degree of stress linked to burnout in caregivers of chronic patients from a 10-min session of noninvasive monitoring with a reliability equivalent to the questionnaires currently used to quantify stress in caregivers.
KW - burnout syndrome
KW - caregiver
KW - Chronic stress
KW - electrophysiological signals
KW - heart rate variability
KW - stress biomarkers
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85090011532&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/10253890.2020.1807512
DO - 10.1080/10253890.2020.1807512
M3 - Article
C2 - 32865469
AN - SCOPUS:85090011532
ER -