Job strain increases PAD hospitalization risk
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Adults who reported job strain had an increased risk of hospitalization for peripheral artery disease, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
“We found that people with work-related stress were 1.4 times as likely as those without work-related stress to have a hospital record of peripheral artery disease,” Katriina Heikkilä, PhD, senior researcher at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, told Healio. “This association was of similar magnitude as the association of job strain with heart disease and stroke, suggesting that job strain is as important a risk factor for PAD as it is for these other cardiovascular disease outcomes.”
Researchers analyzed data from 139,132 participants (mean age, 39-49 years; 36% men) from 11 prospective cohort studies with available data on job strain and PAD treated at the hospital. Participants were not previously treated for PAD at or before baseline.
Data on job strain were collected via questionnaires at baseline, which asked participants to rate statements that described psychosocial aspects of their job.
Job strain at baseline was reported by 23.4% of participants in this study.
During a mean follow-up of 12.8 years, 667 participants had a hospital record of PAD, which ranged from 0.2% to 1.8% of participants, depending on the study. This equated to an overall incidence of PAD of 3.88 per 10,000 person-years.
Participants who reported job strain had an increased average risk for PAD hospitalization (HR = 1.41; 95% CI, 1.11-1.8), which was consistent by baseline smoking status, across the socioeconomic hierarchy and in both sexes.
Adjusting for diabetes at baseline did not alter the direction of magnitude of these associations.
“One possible explanation for the elevated risk of hospitalization with PAD among individuals reporting job strain is that stress has a role in the development of PAD, independently of the known risk factors of age, male sex, low socioeconomic position, smoking, heavy alcohol intake, obesity and physical inactivity,” Heikkilä and colleagues wrote. – by Darlene Dobkowski
For more information:
Katriina Heikkilä, PhD, can be reached at katriina.heikkila@ttl.fi.
Disclosures: The authors report no relevant financial disclosures.
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