According to a new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, work stress, more specifically job strain and efforts-rewards imbalance, was found to increase the incident risk of AFib considerably.
Atrial fibrillation, more commonly known as AFib, is an irregular heartbeat and the most common form of arrhythmia. AFib can lead to severe complications like stroke, heart failure, and other cardiac issues. According to the American Heart Association, more than 12 million people in the United States will have AFib by 2030.
Whereas prior research has associated high job strain and effort-reward imbalance with increased coronary heart disease risk, this is the first study to examine the effects of these psychosocial stressors on AF, according to Xavier Trudel, PhD, an occupational and cardiovascular epidemiologist and associate professor at Laval University in Quebec City, Canada.
“Our results suggest that work-related factors could be of importance to consider in cardiovascular disease prevention,” said Trudel. He emphasized the importance of identifying and counteracting psychosocial work-related stressors to create a healthy work environment for both individuals and organizations.
Their focus was on job strain, a high-demand work environment characterized by heavy workloads and tight deadlines with low control over tasks. The other critical factor evaluated was effort-reward imbalance, a situation whereby workers put great effort into their jobs but perceive the rewards in terms of salary, appreciation, or job security as inadequate or failing to correspond with performance.
Using data from the medical database records of nearly 6,000 white-collar workers in Canada, researchers followed up for 18 years. This study documented that highly burdened employees had a maximum rise of 83 percent in AFib compared to individuals not affected by such stressors. These employees experiencing effort-reward imbalance had a 44 percent higher risk and those who faced the combination of high job strain and effort-reward imbalance were at 97 percent higher risk of AFib.
“The effectiveness of workplace interventions aimed at reducing psychosocial stressors that could also reduce the risk of AFib should be explored in future research,” said Trudel. He added that previous studies of organizational interventions aimed at reducing psychosocial stressors at work showed a resulting decrease in blood pressure. Examples are slowing the pace of large projects, so they would not present an increased workload, introducing flexible working hours, and meetings between managers and employees to discuss everyday challenges.
The limitations of this study are that it focused on white-collar workers, in particular, managers, professionals, and office workers in Canada; hence, the results may not generalize to other types of workers or employees in other countries.
In summary, the research points out that dealing with work-related stressors needs to be a part of the strategy in primary prevention against atrial fibrillation. Recognition and mitigation of these work-related stressors may help to achieve a healthier working environment and reduce the risk for this common and potentially dangerous cardiac condition.