Work-life conflict and cardiovascular health: 5-year follow-up of the Gutenberg Health Study

Night shift work and cardiovascular diseases among employees in Germany: five-year follow-up of the Gutenberg Health Study

OBJECTIVE

This study aimed to determine if there is an increased risk of incident cardiovascular diseases (CVD) resulting from cumulative night shift work in the German population-based Gutenberg Health Study (GHS).

METHODS

We examined working participants of the GHS at baseline and after five years. Cumulative night shift work in the 10 years before baseline was assessed and categorized as low (1-220 nights ≙ up to 1 year), middle (221-660 nights ≙ 1-3 years), and high (>660 nights ≙ more than 3 years) night shift exposure. Hazard ratios (HR) were estimated for incident "quality-assured CVD events" using Cox proportional hazard models.

RESULTS

At baseline, 1092 of 8167 working participants performed night shift work. During the follow-up, 202 incident cardiovascular events occurred. The crude incidence rates for CVD per 1000 person-years were 6.88 [95% confidence interval (CI) 4.80-9.55] for night shift workers and 5.19 (95% CI 4.44-6.04) for day workers. Cumulative incidence curves showed a higher cumulative incidence in workers exposed to night shift work compared to day workers after five years. The adjusted HR for incident CVD events were 1.26 (95% CI 0.68-2.33), 1.37 (95% CI 0.74-2.53) and 1.19 (95% CI 0.67-2.12) for employees in the low, middle and high night shift categories compared to employees without night shift work, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

The observed tendencies indicate that night shift work might be negatively associated with cardiovascular health. We expect the continued follow-up will clarify the long-term impact of night shift work.

"Challenges to Normalcy"- Perceived Barriers to Adherence to Home-Based Cardiac Rehabilitation Exercise in Patients with Chronic Heart Failure

Purpose

The aim of this study was to explore perceived barriers to adherence to home-based cardiac rehabilitation exercise in patients with chronic heart failure.

Patients and Methods

A qualitative descriptive study was conducted in this study from May to July 2023. A purposive sampling approach was adopted to select patients with chronic heart failure. Semi-structured interviews were completed to collect qualitative data for exploring the perceived barriers. In addition, information saturation and validation strategies were adopted to prove the adequacy of qualitative data. Transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results

A total of 16 patients with chronic heart failure were included in this study. Analysis of the data revealed five main barriers to adherence to home-based cardiac rehabilitation in patients with chronic heart failure. These include (1) lack of knowledge, (2) activity intolerance, (3) exercise fear, (4) role conflict, and (5) lower exercise self-efficacy.

Conclusion

This study delved deeper into understanding the challenges faced by chronic heart failure patients in adhering to home-based cardiac rehabilitation exercise. The development of precise and effective management and intervention strategies based on these barriers is necessary to improve patient compliance with home-based cardiac rehabilitation exercise.

Chronic disease outcome metadata from German observational studies - public availability and FAIR principles

Metadata from epidemiological studies, including chronic disease outcome metadata (CDOM), are important to be findable to allow interpretability and reusability. We propose a comprehensive metadata schema and used it to assess public availability and findability of CDOM from German population-based observational studies participating in the consortium National Research Data Infrastructure for Personal Health Data (NFDI4Health). Additionally, principal investigators from the included studies completed a checklist evaluating consistency with FAIR principles (Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, Reusability) within their studies. Overall, six of sixteen studies had complete publicly available CDOM. The most frequent CDOM source was scientific publications and the most frequently missing metadata were availability of codes of the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10). Principal investigators' main perceived barriers for consistency with FAIR principles were limited human and financial resources. Our results reveal that CDOM from German population-based studies have incomplete availability and limited findability. There is a need to make CDOM publicly available in searchable platforms or metadata catalogues to improve their FAIRness, which requires human and financial resources.

Burnout, self-rated general health and life satisfaction among teachers and other academic occupational groups

Introduction

Teachers work in a job with specific demands that can strain individual coping capabilities and can pose a risk for the development of psychological problems. Prior studies showed that teachers - in comparison with other occupational groups - had high risks of job-related psychological exhaustion. In our study we compared teachers and other occupational groups on burnout, general life satisfaction and self-rated general health. In addition, we analyzed if sociodemographic and job-related factors were relevant predictors of these outcomes.

Methods

We analyzed data from a total of 1,500 subjects arising from the Gutenberg Health Study. Binary logistic regression models and descriptive statistics were calculated to determine potential differences between the occupational group membership and the predictive values of sociodemographic and job-related variables.

Results

The occupational groups did not differ significantly in terms of burnout, self-rated general health and satisfaction with life. Logistic regression models showed which sociodemographic and job-related variables were associated with the outcomes. Female sex, part-time employment as well as work-privacy conflicts showed particular predictive relevance.

Discussion

Job-related interventions for teachers should aim at specific strains, e.g., arising out of work-privacy conflicts where interventions should focus on support of female teachers.

Temporal Dimensions of Job Quality and Gender: Exploring Differences in the Associations of Working Time and Health between Women and Men

Research shows strong links between working time organization and workers' health outcomes. Working time is also known to be highly gendered, with men and women working to different schedules. This article merges these two strands of research and takes a gender-based approach to investigating the relationship between temporal job quality and self-reported health in Europe. First, the sixth European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS) is used to establish the relationship between temporal dimensions of job quality and health and well-being outcomes for employed women and men. This is then corroborated using larger samples and more restricted measures of job quality drawn from micro-data from the 2019-2020 EU Labor Force Survey (LFS). The analyses show that good temporal job quality is positively associated with health and subjective well-being for both women and men, but this effect is significantly stronger for women, who are also at a greater risk of exposure to low control over working time and time under-employment. The findings highlight the importance of studying the impact of working and employment conditions on health from gender perspective, and the need for further exploration of job quality due to changes in the spatio-temporal organization of work during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.