Occupational Stress and Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Diseases

Factors related to heart rate variability among firefighters

“…Thus, the physiological system were disturbed and the capability to maintain the homeostasis of the autonomous nervous system which was the defense mechanism was gradually degraded upon repetitive exposure to acute stress. It was consistent with the results of existing studies [ 8 , 22 ]. In addition, the results of this study showed that the heart rate variability was determined by the control of the autonomous nervous system.…”

“…According to the study describing the relationship between job stress and heart rate variability using KOSS developed as a tool to measure job stress of Korean workers, it was reported that chronic autonomic nervous system was degraded in the group with high interpersonal conflict in the automobile manufacturer [ 39 ]. The study targeting men workers at age of 40 or high in the manufacturer showed that SDNN was significantly decreased in areas of job demand, job insecurity and interpersonal conflicts in the group of high job stress [ 8 ]. The study associated with area of lack of reward, Garza et al reported that effort-reward imbalance was associated with decreases in SDNN, RMSSD and HF and increases in LF/HF ratio [ 40 ].…”

“…In the area of organization system, Hf(ln) was decreased in the group of high stress. Koh et al, reported that unreasonable organizational system was associated with increased total cholesterol level and PWV (pulse wave velocity) and decreased heart rate variability in time domain area [ 8 ]. It is also related to the particularity of firefighters such as lack of reasonable communication and organizational support to perform their duty.…”

“…The working environment causes physical and mental stresses, which give various diseases such as musculoskeletal disorders and sleep disorders [ 3 ]. Among them, several studies have revealed that job stress occurring in high tension situations is highly associated with occurrence of cardiovascular diseases [ 4 – 8 ]. It has been reported that workers in high tension situations have more risk factors of cardiovascular diseases [ 9 , 10 ].…”

Heart Rate Variability, Risk-Taking Behavior and Resilience in Firefighters During a Simulated Extinguish-Fire Task

“…Studies mentioned that the typical workload of the task forces correlates with an increased risk of chronic lung diseases (Guidotti, 1995;Weiden et al, 2010;Weakley et al, 2016), cardiovascular diseases (Vrijkotte et al, 2000;Koh et al, 2005;Al-Zaiti and Carey, 2015;Hunter and Mills, 2017), and cancer (LeMasters et al, 2006;Burgess et al, 2018), but also results in mental diseases, such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Haslam and Mallon, 2003;Blackburn and Owens, 2016;Flatten et al, 2016;Quan et al, 2017;Lee, 2019).…”