Abstract

The effects of stress and psychosocial factors on immunity and viral infection were reviewed in this study. There were lots of empirical evidences that psychological stress affects immune system through CNS and endocrine pathway, and altered immune function tends to increase disease susceptibility. However, Stress-immunity-infectious disease pathway is too complicated to describe in a simple way. The duration and nature of stress(whether it is acute or chronic, negative or positive, passive or active) has different effect on immunity. And, effects of other variables such as personality, coping strategies, and social supports should be considered as important intervening variables in that pathway. Their role should be clarified systematically in the future study. Scientific evaluation of the various stress interventions was suggested as a valuable source from which we can get more scientific evidence about Scientific evaluation of the various stress interventions was suggested as a valuable source from which we can get more scientific evidence about stress-immunity-disease pathway.