SINGAPORE, Nov 24th November 2009 : A Swedish study has found that men who bottle up their anger at being unfairly treated or for any other reason at work are up to 5 times more likely to suffer a heart attack, or even die from one, than those who let their frustration show.
The study was made by the Stress Research Institute of Stockholm University, which followed 2,755 employed men who had not suffered any heart attacks from the year 1992 to 2003.
At the end of the study, 47 participants had either suffered an attack, or died from heart disease, and many of those had been found to be “covertly coping” with their anger at work.
“After adjustment for age, socioeconomic factors, risk behaviours, job strain and biological risk factors at baseline, there was a close-response relationship between covert coping and the risk of incident myocardial infarction or cardiac death,” the study’s authors wrote.
Covert coping was listed as “letting thing pass without saying anything” and “going away” despite feelings of being hard done by colleagues or bosses.
Men who often used these coping techniques had a two to fivefold higher risk of developing heart disease than those who were more confrontational at work, the study showed.
The researchers said they could not answer the question of what might be a particularly healthy coping strategy at work, but listed open coping behaviour when experiencing unfair treatment or facing a conflict as “protesting directly”, “talking to the person right away”, “yelling at the person right away” or “speaking to the person later when things have calmed down”.
The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. (Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Alex Richardson) ((miral.fahmy@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: miral.fahmy.reuters.com@thomsonreuters.net, +65 6870 3813)) ((If you have a query or comment on this story, send an email to news.feedback.asia@thomsonreuters.com)
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