Data for the study "Latent toxoplasmosis is associated with a higher level of perceived stress in men but not women, is not associated with anxiety and is associated with worse mental health"

Latent and probably life-long infection with Toxoplasma, which affects about
one-third of the human population, has many specific effects on the personality
and behavior of infected humans. The stress-coping hypothesis was suggested to
explain why many of the toxoplasmosis-associated behavioral changes go in
opposite directions in men and women. This hypothesis suggests that
toxoplasmosis impairs the health of humans, which results in mild chronic
stress. It is known that men and women cope with stress in opposite ways. The
first presumption of the hypothesis, impaired health, has been confirmed in
many studies over the past 15 years. The second, higher level of stress in
infected subjects, has been tested only rarely. Here we compared levels of
stress, measured with the Perceived Stress Scale, and anxiety, measured with
the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory X-2, in a nonclinical population of 614 Toxoplasma-free and 162 Toxoplasma-infected subjects. We found a
higher level of stress in men, but not in women. However, we also found that
physical health had a positive rather than negative effect on stress when
mental health is controlled, which seems to contradict the prediction of the
original stress-coping hypothesis. No differences were found in the anxiety of
infected and noninfected men or women. In agreement with previously published
data, both Toxoplasma-infected
Rh-negative men and women had worse mental health than corresponding Toxoplasma-free controls.Between 28. 9. 2020 and 13. 4. 2021, the questionnaire
was completed or partially completed by 6000 subjects, 5200 of them during
October and November 2020. After filtering out all subjects who were younger
than 18, did not provide information about toxoplasmosis or Rh phenotype,
skipped more than four questions in STAI or more than two questions in PSS, or
answered nearly all questions in STAI or PSS with the same code, we calculated
average anxiety and stress as the arithmetic means of answers of STAI and PSS
questionnaire (after the inversion of scales of questions 1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19
for STAI and 4, 5, 7, 8 for PSS). These means were multiplied by the number of
questions in a particular questionnaire (20 in the case of STAI and 10 in the
case of PSS) to allow comparison to published data. The final data set
contained data from 776 subjects who mostly completed both questionnaires.

刚地弓形虫（Toxoplasma）可引起潜伏且可能终生的感染，全球约三分之一的人口受其影响，该感染对感染者的人格与行为存在诸多特异性影响。有研究者提出应激应对假说，以解释为何许多与弓形虫感染相关的行为改变在男性与女性中呈现相反方向。该假说提出，弓形虫感染会损害人体健康，进而引发轻度慢性应激；而已知男性与女性应对应激的方式恰好相反。该假说的第一个预设——健康受损——在过去15年间的多项研究中已得到证实；而第二个预设，即感染者的应激水平更高，却极少被验证。本研究采用感知应激量表（Perceived Stress Scale）与状态-特质焦虑问卷X-2版（State-Trait Anxiety Inventory X-2）分别评估应激水平与焦虑程度，对比了614名弓形虫阴性与162名弓形虫阳性的非临床人群样本。研究发现，男性感染者的应激水平更高，但女性感染者未出现此现象；同时还发现，在控制心理健康水平的前提下，躯体健康对应激反而存在正向影响，这似乎与原始应激应对假说的预测相悖。无论男性还是女性，感染者与非感染者的焦虑水平均无显著差异；与已发表的研究结果一致，弓形虫阳性的Rh阴性（Rh-negative）男性与女性的心理健康水平均低于同组别的弓形虫阴性对照人群。2020年9月28日至2021年4月13日期间，共计6000名受试者完成或部分完成了问卷调研，其中5200名受试者的调研完成于2020年10月至11月。本研究对受试者进行了筛选：排除年龄不足18岁、未提供弓形虫感染或Rh表型信息、在状态-特质焦虑问卷（STAI）中漏答超过4题或在感知应激量表（PSS）中漏答超过2题、或在STAI与PSS中几乎所有题目均选择同一选项的受试者；随后以STAI与PSS问卷的答题得分算术平均值计算平均焦虑与应激水平（需先对STAI的第1、6、7、10、13、16、19题以及PSS的第4、5、7、8题的计分方向进行反转）。为便于与已发表研究的数据进行对比，将上述算术平均值乘以对应问卷的总题数（STAI为20题，PSS为10题）。最终纳入分析的数据集包含776名受试者的数据，其中绝大多数受试者完成了两份问卷的全部题目。