Occupational Medicine & Health Affairs
Open Access

Research Article

Workplace Re-organization and Changes in Physiological Stress Markers

¹ Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Bispebjerg Hospital, Copenhagen, Denmark

² Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

³ Department of Occupational Medicine, Nykøbing Falster Hospital, Denmark

⁴ National Research Centre of the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark

*Corresponding Author:

Rikke Hinge Carlsson
Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine
Bispebjerg Hospital, Bispebjerg Bakke 23
DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark
Tel: +4535316060
Fax: +4535316070
E-mail: rhin0006@bbh.regionh.dk

Received date: November 14, 2013; Accepted date: January 31, 2014; Published date: February 07, 2014

Citation: Carlsson RH, Hansen ÅM, Kristiansen J, Nielsen ML, Blønd M (2014) Workplace Re-organization and Changes in Physiological Stress Markers. Occup Med Health Aff 2:148. doi: 10.4172/2329-6879.1000148

Copyright: © 2014 Carlsson RH, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

The aim of this study was to investigate changes in physiological stress markers as a consequence of workplace reorganization. Moreover, we aimed to investigate changes in the psychosocial work environment (job strain, effortreward imbalance (ERI), in psychological distress (stress symptoms, perceived stress) and the mediating effect of these factors on changes in physiological stress markers. We used data from a longitudinal study that studied the health consequences of a major reorganization of non-state public offices executed in Denmark on 1 January 2007. Collection of clinical and questionnaire data was in 2006 and 2008, and in this sub-study we included 359 participants. To reflect stress reactions of the autonomic nervous system, the endocrine system and the immune system, we included 13 physiological markers. We observed significant change in several physiological stress markers. Moreover stress symptoms and perceived stress increased significantly but did not explain the physiological changes. ERI and job strain did not change significantly and adjustment for these factors did not change the results. In this study, we found a significant association between workplace reorganization and changes in several physiological stress markers. However, these changes could not be explained by a significant change in psychological distress.

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