The association between job stress and metabolic syndrome among medical university staff.

BACKGROUND

The relationship between job stress and each component of metabolic syndrome has been previously suggested; however, this association is not consistent. The present study was conducted to assess the association between job stress and metabolic syndrome and its components in a group of Iranian workers affiliated with Tehran University of Medical Sciences.

METHODOLOGY

This cross-sectional study was performed on 3,537 randomly selected staff in Tehran University of Medical Sciences including the staff of clinical, administrative, and service departments with at least one year of working experience. The overall frequency of metabolic syndrome was assessed based on the international diabetes federation (IDF) criteria. The Persian version of the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire (COPSOQ) was used to measure major domains of psychosocial factors in the workplace.

RESULTS

The overall frequency of metabolic syndrome in the assessed personnel was estimated to be 22.1 % and there was a significantly higher rate of metabolic syndrome in office workers and service personnel compared to clinical staff (OR: 1.51, CI 95 %: 1.25-1.82 and OR: 1.74, CI 95 %: 1.41-2.14, respectively). Health and well-being as a major domain of COPSOQ was found to be significantly impaired by the presence of metabolic syndrome. According to the results of multiple logistic regression modeling, the relationship between metabolic syndrome and impaired health and well-being domain remained significant after adjusting for age, gender, marital status, educational level, and employment category.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings revealed a close association between job-related stress and the impaired well-being in the presence of metabolic syndrome among the medical university staff.