ABSTRACT

Background and Objectives: The incidence of novel coronavirus infection across the globe has been uneven, hitting some population subgroups harder than others. Media coverage has proffered explanations for this differential vulnerability, but psychosocial risk factors have been largely ignored. In contrast, multiple theories, medical and psychological, point to one psychosocial factor – stress – as important to the etiology of disease. They also agree that pathogenic stress arises from the particular circumstance in which adaptational demands overwhelm a person's resources, creating “stress overload” that deregulates normal functioning and increases susceptibility to illness. Assessment of stress overload is proposed as essential to understanding viral spread in the current pandemic.

Methods: Studies are reviewed explicating (1) stress overload theories and relevant empirical evidence, (2) construction of a stress overload measure and related validity evidence.

Results: Findings support the role of stress overload in illness and the accuracy of the measure in predicting illness.

Conclusion: It is concluded that assessment of stress overload may help to explain the observed coronavirus disparities, and to identify populations at risk for imminent infection. The 10-item Stress Overload Scale-Short is offered as a potentially useful tool for researchers and clinicians working to map, and stem, the proliferation of coronavirus.

抽象的

背景与目的：全球范围内新型冠状病毒感染的发生率一直很不均衡，给某些人群带来了比其他人群更为沉重的打击。媒体报道了这种差异性脆弱性的解释，但心理社会风险因素已被大大忽略。相反，医学和心理学方面的多种理论指出一种心理社会因素-压力-对疾病的病因学至关重要。他们还同意，致病性压力源于适应性需求压倒一个人的资源的特定情况，从而造成“压力超负荷”，从而使正常功能失控，并增加了对疾病的易感性。提出对压力超负荷的评估对于了解当前大流行中的病毒传播至关重要。

方法：对研究进行综述，以阐明（1）压力超载理论和相关经验证据，（2）构造压力超载量度和相关效度证据。

结果：发现支持压力超负荷在疾病中的作用以及该方法在预测疾病中的准确性。

结论：结论是，压力超负荷的评估可能有助于解释观察到的冠状病毒差异，并确定有感染风险的人群。这项10项应力超负荷量表短小版可作为研究人员和临床医生用于绘制和阻止冠状病毒增殖的潜在有用工具。