Remaining in a high-strain job leads to increases in ambulatory
blood pressure for men, compared with blood pressure of those
in non-high-strain jobs.
That's the view presented by Dr. Peter L. Schnall, who is associated
with the Occupational Health Center at University of California,
Irvine. He notes that men who reported job strain were three to
five times more likely to have hypertension than those who did
not.
According to Schnall, findings from a Cornell University study
also indicate a carryover effect in which increase in ambulatory
blood pressure among high-strain workers were observed not only
at work but also at home and during sleep.
Schnall says that job strain is characterized by high psychological-workload
demands combined with low "decision latitude". He defines
the latter as the combination of both decision-making authority
and use of skills on the job.
The increased systolic ambulatory blood pressure caused by job
strain is seen in all age-groups and is greater among workers
with only a high school education, he notes. Further, exposure
to alcohol together with job strain resulted in substantially
greater increases of ambulatory blood pressure than either risk
factor individually.