Associations of work-family conflict with changes in metabolic risk factors: a four-year longitudinal study

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is becoming prevalent among younger people who have dual roles at both work and home. A possible contributor to CVD is conflict between work and home life. Thus, this study investigated the impact of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) on metabolic risk factors. We used longitudinal data with a 4-yr interval from the Midlife in Japan study. 152 participants who were employed at baseline without missing variables of interest were included. We assessed the associations of baseline WFC and FWC with changes in metabolic risk factors between baseline and follow-up using Generalized Estimating Equations. After adjusting for baseline sociodemographic, work and family-related, and lifestyle factors, the fully adjusted model showed WFC was significantly associated with changes in low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and Total cholesterol (TC)/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) ratio. However, FWC was not significantly associated with changes in any metabolic risk factors. Our findings indicated a significant impact of WFC on LDL-C and TC/HDL-C ratio but no significant impact of FWC on metabolic health. Since these metabolic risk factors cause CVD, understanding the physiological responses to occupational psychosocial stress could help create primary prevention interventions and assess their effects on workers' metabolic health.