| Abstract [eng] |
Perimenopause is an important period in a woman's life, when the woman's body undergoes physiological changes leading to the end of the reproductive age. It is known that long-term stress can cause negative damage to general health, that the body's reactivity to stress can change as a person ages, and for women, aging is inseparable from the perimenopause transition and menopause. However, there are not many studies evaluating how women's physiological reactivity to psychosocial stress changes with age. Understanding how stress reactivity changes during perimenopause can help health care professionals develop targeted interventions to help women through this transition, which can improve the risk of mental health care and provision of health problems. In the study, 42 younger and 44 older perimenopausal women were asked to complete the short Sing a Song test of psychosocial stress. During the experiment, the electrical conductivity of the women's skin was recorded, which determines the response of the sympathetic system to the induced psychosocial stress. Also, saliva samples were taken to determine changes in cortisol levels, thereby determining the activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis during a psychosocial stress experiment. During the study, the subjective (long-term and during the experiment) stress experienced by women was evaluated. The results of the study showed that the level of electrical conductivity of the skin, regardless of age group, changed in response to psychosocial stress. The electrical conductivity of the skin of older women was slightly higher compared to younger women. After evaluating changes in cortisol levels, it was found that cortisol levels in the group of older women were significantly elevated during stress. Indicators of subjective stress (chronic assessment and experienced during the experiment) were not significant with physiological parameters of stress assessment, but revealed that older study participants had less stress than younger women. |
