Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 15, 1994 TAG: 9404150075
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press Note: below
DATELINE: BOSTON LENGTH: Medium
Working women were less likely than men to show the ill effects of job stress, but their blood pressure is more likely to soar in response to strains at home, especially problems with children, a separate study found.
The studies were among several presented Thursday that strengthen the belief that highly demanding jobs in which people have little control are especially bad for health. However, they cautioned that what happens off the job matters, too.
``It would be naive to think that job strain explains everything. It's only part of the day,'' said Dr. Thomas Pickering of New York Hospital.
To delve into these questions, researchers hooked up volunteers to portable monitors and watched how their blood pressure went up or down in response to the day's challenges. They presented their findings at a meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine.
Dr. Joseph Schwartz and others from the State University of New York at Stony Brook followed 373 men and women who worked in nine different places in New York City.
They found that people in highly demanding jobs with little autonomy had significantly higher blood pressure than did those in less taxing situations, including people with stressful jobs who could make their own decisions and those in easy-going positions who had little opportunity to think for themselves.
Those in high-stress, low-freedom jobs had blood pressure that averaged 137 over 85, versus about 129 over 83 for the other people. The difference grows progressively greater as people get older. Normal blood pressure is 120 over 80.
by CNB