How can employers help reduce stress in the workplace?
Preventing increased workload and offering flexible working hours could lead to healthier Canadian workers in the long run, according to a recent report.
For employers, exposing workers to high levels of stress and failing to proportionately reward their efforts could lead to poor heart health for workers, finds a years-long study published in the Journal of American Heart Association (JAHA).
Overall, workers with combined exposure to high job strain and effort-reward imbalance at work (ERI) had a 97% atrial fibrillation (AFib) incidence risk increase.
But it does not require workers to experience both for them to develop heart problems. In fact, workers exposed to job strain had an 83% AFib risk increase. Among workers who were exposed to ERI, the increase in risk was 44%.
“Our study suggests that work-related stressors may be relevant factors to include in preventive strategies,” said the study’s senior author, Xavier Trudel, Ph.D., an occupational and cardiovascular epidemiologist and associate professor at Laval University in Quebec, according to an American Heart Association report posted on SciTech Daily.
AFib is an irregular and often very rapid heart rhythm. It can lead to blood clots in the heart, according to the Mayo Clinic. The condition also increases the risk of stroke, heart failure and other heart-related complications.
And workers who are exposed to either or both work strain and ERI do not need to have a history of heart problems to develop AFib.
“Our findings also suggest that work‐stress–related AFib could manifest without preexisting CVD events,” said the authors in the study titled “Psychosocial Stressors at Work and Atrial Fibrillation Incidence: An 18‐Year Prospective Study.”
The study followed a total of 5,926 white‐collar workers (3021 women and 2905 men) free of cardiovascular disease at baseline for an average of 18 years.
Burnt out and overworked employees face higher risks of stroke and heart disease, according to previous reports.
Some adjustments in the workplace could help, according to the American Heart Association report.
“The effectiveness of workplace interventions to reduce psychosocial stressors that may also reduce the risk of AFib should be investigated in future research efforts,” Trudel said. “Our research team previously conducted an organizational intervention designed to reduce psychosocial stressors at work, which was shown to effectively reduce blood pressure levels.”
“Examples of organizational changes implemented during the intervention included slowing down the implementation of a large project to prevent increased workload; implementing flexible work hours; and holding meetings between managers and employees to discuss day-to-day challenges,” he said.
In a highly stressful workplace where employees learn to mistrust their boss, the chances of developing cardiovascular or cerebrovascular disease is high, according to another study.
