International Handbook of Work and Health Psychology, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 4The Effects of Job Strain on Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease

Arie Shirom, Galit Armon

Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University, Israel

Shlomo Berliner, Itzhak Shapira

Tel-Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, Israeland

Samuel Melamed

Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College, Israel

4.1 THE OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OF THE REVIEW

In our review, we focus on work-related psychological stress. Within this stress research domain, we exclude from our review event-based types of stress – including acute and critical job events such as being demoted or going on involuntary vacation (Eden, 1982, 1990). We also exclude work-related hassles, such as being caught in a traffic jam while commuting to work (cf. Gajendran & Harrison, 2007). It follows that we focus on chronic stress at work. Researchers may disagree on the conceptual definition of work-related chronic stress (Cooper, 1998; Monroe, 2008). There is basic agreement, however, about the notion that work-related chronic stress, hereafter referred to simply as stress, may be implicated in cardiovascular disease risk factors, specifically physiological ones, such as elevated cholesterol and blood pressure levels, and in certain maladaptive behavioural responses (Aboa-Eboule et al., 2007; Chandola et al., 2008; Chandola, Brunner & Marmot, 2006; Williams, 2008).

We decided to focus on the effects of work-related stress on risk factors for cardiovascular disease (CVD). We define CVD as a composite of coronary heart disease, stroke and ...