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This study took place mostly in my home but was based out of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, MD. The purpose of the study was to understand how reported stress and happiness levels relate to biomarkers found in saliva. The researchers were looking for people who reported feeling stressed, which I know is probably almost everybody in the US.
I sat down at a desk in the 550 building with a wonderful winter view of Broadway Street, Jefferson Street, and the Jefferson Promenade. The study started with an assessment which had general health questions and many mental health related questionnaires. The researchers also took a saliva sample and a small hair sample from my head.
I was instructed that a text message with a link to a short survey would be sent to my phone every morning and evening for 5 weeks. I was also given paper versions of the survey just in case my phone was unavailable. At around the same time I completed the surveys each day, I was to collect my saliva in small tubes. I left the session with a bag full of 5 weeks worth of saliva tubes. Even though my bag was filled with sterile saliva tubes, it felt like it was Christmas all over again!
Every morning and evening for the next 5 weeks, I received the same text asking me to fill out the survey. I’d click on the link and a browser on my phone would pop up with a few questions. I was asked to rate my mood, stress, and happiness levels by selecting a number from 1 to 100 for each. I was also asked to report the time I had done the saliva collection that morning or evening. The process was simple and took very little time.
To provide the saliva samples for this study, I chewed on a stiff cotton tube for 60 seconds. The cotton would absorb my saliva through the chewing process. This was unique to my experiences providing saliva, as for other experiments I would simply spit into a tube or hold a thick cotton swab in my mouth. I was asked to store the saliva in the refrigerator, and then send the tubes in a pre-addressed envelope back to the researchers each week. I placed printed labels with the date and time of day on each tube so the researchers knew exactly which saliva sample corresponded to which survey.
A majority of my pay was based on compliance with the surveys and saliva samples, so I made sure to do all of them. I used a paper survey a couple of times when my phone was dead or I was having trouble with the internet.
When I went to place the first week’s package into a USPS mailbox, a sign on the mailbox caught my eye, and I became worried about the 13 ounce rule, which states that any package weighing over 13 ounces should be taken to the post office. So that’s what I did the first time around, but after speaking with the researcher, I realized the package was no where near 13 ounces.
The point of this study was to better understand the association of reported stress levels compared to biomarkers in saliva, such as alpha-amylase and cortisol. How high would my cortisol level be when I reported being at 72/100 on the stress scale as opposed to when I reported a 30/100 stress level? Understanding the correlation of reported stress levels and biomarkers can help inform treatments and future research. The study was clever and unique in that I spent very little time in person with the researchers, yet they were able to obtain a large amount of data over 5 weeks.
After the final visit, at which I filled out questionnaires similar to those I had completed on my original visit, I was sent a check for $560 for completing the entire study and being compliant with all of the surveys and saliva samples.