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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2018 Jun 6.
Published in final edited form as: Res Nurs Health. 2016 Sep 30;39(6):449–462. doi: 10.1002/nur.21744

Table 2.

Factors that Interfere With Cortisol Secretion or Measurement

Category Examples
Medication and Herbal products, corticosteroids, sex
substances hormones, antidepressants, caffeine, lithium, methadone, phenytoin, nicotine
Diagnoses Cushing disease, Addison disease, depression, panic disorder, obesity, schizophrenia, personality disorders, stuttering, ADHD
Lifestyle factors Smoking, alcohol use, caffeine, exercise/activity level, perceived stress, recent food ingestion or tooth brushing
Demographic characteristics Gender, race, age, pubertal status

Note. Adapted from Psychoneuroimmunology (2009), 34, 1423–1436, Adam & Kumari, Assessing salivary cortisol in large-scale, epidemiological research, and Applied Nursing Research (2006), 19, 95–101, Hanrahan et al., Strategies for salivary cortisol collection and analysis in research with children, with permissions from Elsevier.