Association between Work-Related Stress and Risk for Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Background/Objective The prevalence of type 2 diabetes is increasing rapidly around the world. Work-related stress is thought to be a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes; however, this association has not been widely studied, and the findings that have been reported are inconsistent. Therefore, we conducted a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies to explore the association between work-related stress and risk for type 2 diabetes. Methods A systematic literature search and manual search limited to articles published in English were performed to select the prospective cohort studies evaluated the association between work-related stress and risk for type 2 diabetes up to September 2014 from four electronic databases including PubMed, EMBASE, the Cochrane Library and Web of Science. A random-effects model was used to estimate the overall risk. Results No significant association was found between work-related stress and risk for type 2 diabetes based on meta-analysis of seven prospective cohort studies involving 214,086 participants and 5,511 cases (job demands: relative risk 0.94 [95% confidence interval 0.72–1.23]; decision latitude: relative risk 1.16 [0.85–1.58]; job strain: relative risk 1.12 [.0.95–1.32]). However, an association between work-related stress and risk for type 2 diabetes was observed in women (job strain: relative risk 1.22 [1.01–1.46]) (P = 0.04). A sensitivity analysis conducted by excluding one study in each turn yielded similar results. No publication bias was detected with a funnel plot despite the limited number of studies included in the analysis. Conclusions The results of this meta-analysis did not confirm a direct association between work-related stress and risk for type 2 diabetes. In subgroup analyses we found job strain was a risk factor for type 2 diabetes in women.