Work stress in the etiology of coronary heart disease--a meta-analysis.

By M. Kivimaki, M. Virtanen, Marko Elovainio, A. Kouvonen, A. Väänänen, J. Vahtera. Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, 2006

926 citations recorded by the source corpus.

OBJECTIVES This study focused on estimating the relative risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in association with work stress, as indicated by the job-strain model, the effort-reward imbalance model, and the organizational injustice model. METHODS A systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies were carried out. Studies were eligible if they had published a quantitative estimate of the association between work stress and incident CHD or cardiovascular mortality by January 2006. RESULTS Fourteen prospective cohort studies were identified. For a total of 83 014 employees, the age- and gender-adjusted relative ratio of CHD for high versus low job strain was 1.43 [95% confidence interval (95% CI) 1.15-1.84], but the ratio decreased to 1.16 (95% CI 0.94-1.43) after adjustment for risk factors and potential mediators. The age- and gender-adjusted risk ratio for a combination of high efforts and low rewards was 1.58 (95% CI 0.84-2.97) for 11 528 employees, and no reduction in the risk ratio was seen after further adjustments. For organizational injustice, the age- and gender-adjusted, and multiple-adjusted relative risks were 1.62 (95% CI 1.24-2.13) and 1.47 (95% CI 1.12-1.95), respectively, for a population of 7246 men and women. There was little standardization in the assessment of work stress within all three stress models, and significant heterogeneity in the effects of stress was observed between studies. Few studies were available for female samples. CONCLUSIONS Observational data suggest an average 50% excess risk for CHD among employees with work stress. Further research is needed to confirm that a reduction in work stress will lead to a reduction in CHD risk.

Subfields: Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine, General Health Professions, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/62857f0a79636a7effb75ea1d6c8d5f94f97470e

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In Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine

In General Health Professions

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Work Stress and Employee Health (2013, background): “Several characteristics of this meta-analysis are worth noting. first, by including only prospective cohort studies with sound CVD measures, Kivimaki et al. (2006) attempted to derive conservative estimates.”
A Meta-Analytic Structural Model of Dispositonal Affectivity and Emotional Labor (2013, background): “various deleterious physiological outcomes or withdrawal behaviors (e.g., absence from work; e.g., Darr & Johns, 2008; Kivimäki et al., 2006), efforts should be made to minimize other sources of stress in high emotional labor jobs like heavy workloads, excessive environmental stimuli (e.”
Psychological stress and disease. (2007, background): “One meta-analysis estimated an approximate 50% increase in CVD risk associated with high levels of work stress, defined as low workplace control coupled with high demands, inadequate compensation, or organizational injustice.(13) Long-term CVD risk is also increased among initially healthy individua”
Job insecurity and employee health: The buffering potential of job control and job self-efficacy (2010, background): “One of the most influential models on the relationship between work and health is the JDC model (Karasek, 1979; for recent overviews, see Belkic, Landsbergis, Schnall, & Baker, 2004; de Lange, Taris, Kompier, Houtman, & Bongers, 2003; Häusser, Mojzisch, Niesel, & Schulz-Hardt, 2010; Karasek et al., ”