Work-Related Stress and Occurrence of Cardiovascular Disease: A 13-Year Prospective Study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the study is to investigate the influence of work-related psychological and physical stresses on risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Methods: A total of 5651 CVD-free participants older than 50 years from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe were followed up for 13 years to detect incident CVD. Work-related stress was assessed using job strain and job reward questionnaire. Cox regression model was used to estimate the association.

Results: High physical demands (hazard ratio [HR], 1.30) and low reward (HR, 1.19) compared with their counterparts, as well as active physical jobs (HR, 1.41) and high physical strain (HR, 1.45) in comparison with low physical strain were associated with higher risk of incident CVD after adjusting for confounders. However, combining physically stressful jobs with low reward did not further increase the CVD risk.

Conclusions: Avoiding physically stressful jobs or providing appropriate reward may reduce the occurrence of CVD.