The STRESS-EU database: A European resource of human acute stress studies for the worldwide research community

Abstract

Our current understanding of the human stress response and its role in health, resilience, and (psycho)pathology stems largely from acute stress studies in controlled laboratory settings. Comparability of findings across these individual studies is comprised, as sample size are often small, between-individual variation in the stress response is large and variation in stress-induction procedures and measurement timing is substantial. To overcome this, 16 research groups across Europe have established the STRESS-EU database. A unique resource with individual participant data (n = 6576) of acute stress studies to promote data reuse and facilitate both meta-analytical and proof-of-principle analyses with high statistical power, that can be hypothesis- or data-driven. This short communication highlights the structure, content, access and contribution procedures and future plans of the STRESS-EU database and invited researchers worldwide to contribute to this data resource.