Blood pressure and heart rate variability in workers of 8-hour shifts.

Oct 21, 2003Journal of human ergology

Blood pressure and heart rate changes in workers on 8-hour shifts

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Abstract

The mean shiftwork duration among 134 workers was 5.21 years.

Blood pressure showed significantly increasing trends with longer shiftwork duration for both systolic and diastolic measurements.
Heart rate variability exhibited significantly decreasing trends associated with longer shiftwork duration in both parasympathetic and sympathetic functions.
77.9% of participants were current smokers, and 50% experienced passive job strain according to Karasek's model.
None of the workers were classified as definitely morning or definitely evening types based on circadian rhythm assessment.
These findings suggest negative health effects on the cardiovascular system related to shiftwork.

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This study examined the effects of shiftwork on the cardiovascular system. The blood pressure (BP) and heart rate variability (HRV) of 134 male workers, who worked 8-hour shifts with rapid rotation of shifts at 3-day intervals, were examined for all the three shifts. In addition, the job stress was measured by Karasek's JCQ 49-item questionnaire and the circadian type was assessed by the morningness-eveningness questionnaire. The smoking and alcohol drinking habits, marital status and past medical history were also obtained. The method of analyzing the measured data based on a mixed model was used to illustrate the association between the shiftwork duration and the BP or HRV. The average age of workers was 29 years (between 25-44). Among them, 77.9% were current smokers, 50% showed the passive type of job strain in Karasek's model. The mean shiftwork duration was 5.21 years (range 5.4 months--10 years). In the circadian type, none of them belonged to a definitely morning type or a definitely evening type. In the multivariate analysis adjusted by age, job strain, shift, circadian rhythm and smoking, the blood pressure showed significantly increasing trends according to shiftwork duration in both the systolic and diastolic BP. The heart rate variability also showed a significantly decreasing trend according to the shiftwork duration in both the parasympathetic and sympathetic functions (p < 0.05). These results suggests that there are negative health effects arising from shiftwork on the cardiovascular system.

Blood pressure and heart rate variability in workers of 8-hour shifts.

Abstract

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