Person-related work and the risk of type 2 diabetes: a Swedish register-based cohort study

Person-related work requires workers to interact with individuals not employed at the workplace, such as clients and patients, and can cause emotional labour and conflict. These stressors may increase workers' risk of type 2 diabetes, but their impact may differ depending on the level of support received from colleagues. We aimed to examine the association between person-related work and the risk of type 2 diabetes, and the effect modification of social support at work.

The study population consisted of around three million people without type 2 diabetes in Sweden in 2005, who were employed and aged 30-60 years. Three dimensions of person-related work-general contact with people, emotional demands and confrontation-and social support were respectively assessed using job exposure matrices. Patients with type 2 diabetes in 2006-20 were determined based on drug, patient and death registers. Multivariable Cox regression models were used.

High exposures to emotional demands and confrontation were respectively associated with 20% and 15% increased risks of type 2 diabetes in men and 24% and 20% in women. In both men and women, there was statistically significant effect modification by social support-the associations between emotional demands and confrontation and type 2 diabetes were higher among those with low social support than those with high social support.

In both men and women, dimensions of person-related work, including emotional demands and confrontation, are associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes, and low social support at work seems to amplify the magnitude of these associations.