Article Text
Abstract
Background Hypertension, a major public health problem worldwide, has been linked to lifestyle factors and work conditions, with conflicting evidence on the association between long work hours and risk of hypertension.
Methods We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies to investigate the relationship between working hours and hypertension or blood pressure, assessed the risk of bias and performed subgroup analyses. The protocol was registered with the International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews.
Results The pooled OR for the association between long working hours and risk of hypertension was 1.09 (95% CI: 0.88 to 1.35) in the 15 studies that used hypertension as the outcome. In the three studies that used blood pressure as the outcome, diastolic blood pressure was higher among those with long working hours compared with those with non-long working hours (1.24 mm Hg, 95% CI: 0.19 to 2.29). In subgroup analysis, the pooled OR for the association between long working hours and risk of hypertension was 1.28 (95% CI: 1.14 to 1.44) and 1.00 (95% CI: 0.64 to 1.56) in women and men, respectively.
Conclusions Although this study could not clearly confirm the relationship between long working hours and hypertension, the subgroup analysis suggests that long working hours may be associated with hypertension, particularly among women. More reliable research is needed to establish causality.
PROSPERO registration number CRD42023406961.
- HYPERTENSION
- BLOOD PRESSURE
- SYSTEMATIC REVIEW
- META-ANALYSIS
Data availability statement
No data are available.
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Data availability statement
No data are available.
Footnotes
Contributors All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript. Specifically, M-YK conceptualised and supervised the study. JA and J-HS collected the data. JA analysed the data. JA and M-YK wrote and prepared the manuscript. Additionally, M-YK is the guarantor, accepting full responsibility for the work, having access to the data, and controlling the decision to publish.
Funding This research is supported by National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF-2022R1F1A1066498).
Competing interests None declared.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
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