Association between Risk of Metabolic Syndrome and Stress in Each Occupational Group of KoreanWorkers: Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2014–2016

ABSTRACT

Background@#Chronic stress at work is known to be associated with the risk of developing metabolic syndrome. Recent studies have evaluated stressand its association with metabolic syndrome in specific occupational groups. In the present study, we examined the relationship between stress andthe risk of developing metabolic syndrome in each occupational group. @*Methods@#The present study examined 7,460 Korean workers, aged 20–65 years, whose data were collected from the Korea National Health andNutrition Examination Survey conducted between 2014 and 2016. The information on usual stress awareness was self-reported, and thebiochemical profile of the blood was conducted. The chi-square test and multiple logistic regression analysis were used to investigate therelationship between stress and metabolic syndrome in each occupational group. @*Results@#The metabolic syndrome was prevalent in 26.3% of the study subjects. In the function-related job groups, the individuals with high stress levelsshowed a significantly higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome (odds ratio, 1.625; 95% confidence interval, 1.042–2.534) than those with lowstress levels. An increasing trend was observed, which suggested the increased risk of developing metabolic syndrome across increasing stress levelsin a stratified analysis in many occupational groups, specifically in function-related, viz., manager and expert, office worker, service worker, andsimple laborer (P for trend <0.001) groups. @*Conclusion@#The stress levels were significantly correlated with the risk of developing metabolic syndrome in function-related job groups. A differencebetween dose-response association of stress levels and metabolic syndrome existed in each occupational group.