Work stress family stress and asthma a crosssec

Authors: Adrian Loerbroks Hui Ding Wei Han Hong Wang JiangPing Wu Liu Yang Peter Angerer Jian Li

Publish Date: 2017/02/20

Volume: 90, Issue: 4, Pages: 349-356

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Abstract

Research addressing links of work stress or family stress with asthma is constrained by 1 inconsistent evidence 2 failure to consider the combined exposure to work stress and family stress and 3 its primary focus on Western study populations We aimed to address these knowledge gapsWe used crosssectional data collected in 2015 among 7816 women from five professional groups in five Chinese cities Work stress was measured by the 10item effort–reward imbalance ERI questionnaire Family stress was assessed by a psychometrically evaluated instrument comprising five items on eg familial conflicts or domestic workload Asthma was operationalized by selfreports of a physician diagnosis Associations were examined by multivariable logistic regression estimating odds ratios ORs and 95 confidence intervals CIsBoth high work stress ie ERI score 1 and high family stress ie score above the median were associated with asthma OR 166 95 CI 122–227 and OR 148 95 CI 110–199 respectively Women with combined exposure versus none had somewhat higher odds of asthma OR 213 95 CI 142–319 than those with sole exposure to either work stress OR 189 95 CI 120–296 or family stress OR 171 95 CI 103–284 Interaction terms were significant for continuous variables p = 0046 but not for dichotomized variables p = 0199The present study suggests that both work stress and family stress are positively associated with asthma in women in China Further the combined exposure may be associated with a further excess of asthma occurrence Longitudinal studies are needed to confirm our findings and to explore potential temporal relationshipsThe project was sponsored by the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China as one of the Pillar Programs from the National 12th FiveYear Plan project No 2012BAI37B03 Hui Ding Wei Han Hong Wang JiangPing Wu and Liu Yang collected data in five cities respectively and they contributed to this study equallyAll procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards

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