Work-related stress and blood pressure: current theoretical models and considerations from a behavioral medicine...

There is extensive evidence that the prevalence of human hypertension is related to psychosocial factors, possibly including chronic exposure to stress. A tripartite model, consistent with the literature on stress and health, may help to define this relationship better. Its 3 components are environmental stressors, individual factors affecting the perception of stress, and the individual's physiological susceptibility. To date, researchers have looked at individual parts of this model, but rarely at all 3. Some models of work stress (e.g., the job strain, effort-reward, and person-environment fit models) focus on work-related stressors alone or in conjunction with individual characteristics. Other models (e.g., the defense-defeat, John Henryism, and reactivity models) focus on individual differences in response, with little attention paid to the nature of the stressors. The authors suggest that it is timely to integrate these approaches and to look for physiological mechanisms.