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Clinical Trial
. 2013 Dec 3;8(12):e81020.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0081020. eCollection 2013.

Is there an association between work stress and diurnal cortisol patterns? Findings from the Whitehall II study

Jing Liao  1 , Eric J Brunner, Meena Kumari
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Is there an association between work stress and diurnal cortisol patterns? Findings from the Whitehall II study

Jing Liao et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objective: The evidence on whether there is work stress related dysregulation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis is equivocal. This study assessed the relation between work stress and diurnal cortisol rhythm in a large-scale occupational cohort, the Whitehall II study.

Methods: Work stress was assessed in two ways, using the job-demand-control (JDC) and the effort-reward-imbalance (ERI) models. Salivary cortisol samples were collected six times over a normal day in 2002-2004. The cortisol awakening response (CAR) and diurnal cortisol decline (slope) were calculated.

Results: In this large occupational cohort (N = 2,126, mean age 57.1), modest differences in cortisol patterns were found for ERI models only, showing lower reward (β = -0.001, P-value = 0.04) and higher ERI (β = 0.002, P-value = 0.05) were related to a flatter slope in cortisol across the day. Meanwhile, moderate gender interactions were observed regarding CAR and JDC model.

Conclusions: We conclude that the associations of work stress with cortisol are modest, with associations apparent for ERI model rather than JDC model.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have no conflicts of interests to declare.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Diurnal cortisol decline by Effort-Reward-Imbalance (ERI) status.
Figure 1. Diurnal cortisol decline (adjusted means including 95% CI) by ERI status, adjusted for age, gender, ethnicity, time of waking and time since waking. ERI: effort-reward-imbalance ratio; SD: standard deviation.
Figure 2
Figure 2. Salivary cortisol levels at waking and 30-min-later by job-demand in women and men.
Figure 2. Salivary cortisol levels (adjusted means including 95% CI) at waking and 30-min later by job demand status in women and men, adjusted for age, gender, ethnicity, time of waking and time since waking. SD: standard deviation.
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