Which psychosocial job demands matter most for parasympathetic heart rate variability? A dominance analysis study

Prolonged reduced heart rate variability (HRV) is associated with impaired health and chronic diseases. Despite this connection, it remains unclear which psychosocial job demands are the strongest predictors of reduced HRV and poorer health outcomes. This study aimed to determine the most relevant psychosocial job demands that predict reduced HRV.

The study participants were 163 municipal employees (86% female, mean age 47) who responded to a survey on psychosocial job demands and measured their electrocardiography-based HRV over 4 consecutive nights during a normal work week. The root mean square of successive RR intervals (RMSSD) was used as an indicator of autonomic nervous system activity mediated by the vagus nerve. Hierarchical mixed model regression analysis included psychosocial job demands and the most relevant individual factors and occupational sector as a nested random effect. Dominance analysis (DA) was used to assess all the variable combinations to identify the most significant determinants of HRV across the regression models.

The participants' RMSSD was stable over the measurement period. DA ranked the participants' age as the factor that most affected RMSSD. The psychosocial job demands that seemed to be the most relevant for RMSSD were encountering bullying and violence at work, ethically challenging situations at work, and effort-reward imbalance. Gender was ranked as the fourth factor.

These results need to be confirmed in further studies, but they suggest that workplace bullying and violence as well as ethically challenging situations at work might have the greatest effect on HRV among public sector employees.