Having Supportive Co-Workers Could Help You Live Longer

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Having supportive co-workers might aid you live longer than counterparts without having, even though support from the boss appears to make no difference, said researchers from Israel in a study published inside the May possibly concern of the journal Health Psychology.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University found that the link in between living longer along with the effect of having a supportive peer network was strongest among those aged in between 38 and 43.

But when they looked at another aspect of workplace pressure, they were surprised to discover that having far more control over one’s work appears to improve the chance of living longer for males, but to decrease it for ladies.

For their prospective study, study leader Dr Arie Shirom, a professor in the Faculty of Management, and colleagues examined records of health exams carried out in 1988 in 820 workers referred for routing screening via their workplace health maintenance organization (HMO).

HMO can be a form of managed care provided by way of employers, who in this study included some of Israel’s largest wellness care, utility, finance, insurance and manufacturing companies.

The well being screenings included measures of socioeconomic, behavioral, and biological threat factors, plus a measure used to assess workplace elements, called the Job-Demand-Control-Support (JDC-S) questionnaire which includes items on workload, control, decision authority, peer and supervisor social support.

In the JDC-S model, peer social support is rated high if you report that your co-workers are friendly and helpful in solving problems. Control and decision authority is rated high if you report becoming in a position to use your initiative, having opportunities to make best use of your skills, and being free decide how to go about and accomplish your function tasks.

One third of the participants were female, 80% were married with children, and 45% had at the very least 12 years of formal education. The sample did not include individuals who were referred for wellness screening due to suspected physical or mental wellness issues.

The computerized HMO records also enabled the researchers to track deaths amongst the 820 workers for the next 20 years, until 2008.

Using a statistical tool called Cox regression models, after adjusting for known physiological and behavioral aspects captured within the records, the researchers then looked for links among the JDC-S workplace components and risk of death.

Examples of prospective risk variables they had been able to adjust for included levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose, body mass index (BMI), blood pressure, alcohol consumption, smoking, symptoms of depression and anxiety, and hospitalizations.

The results showed that:53 of the participants died for the duration of the follow-up period.
The risk of death (from all causes) was substantially lower for those workers reporting high levels of peer social support.
The strongest effect was amongst those who had been between 38 and 43 years old in 1988, the baseline of the study.
Higher levels of control appeared to decrease the risk of death for males but increase it for women.Surprisingly, regardless of whether men and women had a supportive or unsupportive boss appeared to make no difference to their danger of death.

The researchers wrote that “peer social support, which could represent how well a participant is socially integrated in his or her employment context, is a potent predictor of the danger of all causes of mortality”.

An additional, and unexpected locating, was “that the effect of control on mortality threat was positive for the males but negative for the females,” they added.

Speculating on why workplace control might have a protective effect for males but not for girls, Shirom said perhaps it was due to the fact most of their participants had been blue collar workers, where high levels of control tend to be identified mostly in jobs held by males but not in jobs held by girls.

“Providing partial support to our obtaining, a past study located that for women in blue-collar jobs, having low levels of control doesn’t improve their risk of becoming ill with stress-related disorders,” he added.

One criticism that could be aimed at the study is that the researchers did not have a look at how adjustments in workload, control or support changed over the follow-up (due to the fact this was not available to them).

However, in their defence, Shirom argued that this was probably a minor limitation due to the fact studies have consistently shown that workload, control and support characteristics of jobs tend to be stable over time.

“Work-based predictors of mortality: A 20-year follow-up of wholesome employees.”
Shirom, Arie; Toker, Sharon; Alkaly, Yasmin; Jacobson, Orit; Balicer, Ran
Health Psychology, Vol 30 (three), Could 2011, 268-275.
DOI: 10.1037/a0023138

Additional source: American Psychological Association.

Written by: Catharine Paddock, PhD
Copyright: Medical News Today
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