Salivary cortisone as potential predictor of occupational exposure to noise and related stress.

Salivary cortisone strongly correlates with serum cortisol, and since it is less invasive to measure salivary cortisone than serum cortisol and easier than to measure cortisol in saliva, as its concentrations are much lower, we wanted to compare salivary cortisone and cortisol levels as markers of noise-induced stress reaction. The study included 104 participants aged 19-30 years, 50 of whom were exposed to occupational noise ≥85 dB(A) and 54 non-exposed, control students. All participants took samples of their saliva with Salivette Cortisol synthetic swabs on three consecutive working days first thing in the morning.