Job-Related Stress and Lifestyle Issues in Ischemic Heart Disease

Abstract

Background: Non-communicable diseases (NCDs) are the major public health concern all over the world. Ischemic heart disease (IHD) is now the leading cause of premature death in 146 countries for men and 98 countries for women.

Objectives: To explore sociodemographic and lifestyle factors and job-related stress in IHD patients admitted in Combined Military Hospital (CMH) Dhaka.

Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in CMH Dhaka from May 2025 to July 2025 among purposively selected 113 IHD patients. Data were collected through pretested semi-structured questionnaire using 23 items Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire (ERIQ).

Results: Among the respondents, 83.2% were male and the average age was around 49years. Nearly 40% of them were qualified with secondary school certificate (SSC), and their average monthly income was about 42000 taka. Majority (62.8%) were government service holder, 89.4% have permanent job. Around one-third of them (33.6%) were third class employee. Almost half (46.0%) of the respondents perform their duties between 8-9 hours. Two-thirds were involved in regular physical activities, 52.21% had the habit of smoking, 54.87% used to take additional salt with food and 67.3% had BMI within normal limit, 77% had essential hypertension, 34.51% with Diabetes Mellitus and 65.49% had dyslipidemia. In regards to ERIQ, more than half (54.87%) had intermediate effort score, 57.52% had low reward and 62.83% intermediate overcommitment score. Eighty eight percent had high effort-reward imbalance ratio score.

Conclusion: Present study assessed the sociodemographic and lifestyle attributes of the IHD patients to elicit the job-related stress by applying ERI questionnaire. The sociodemographic attributes typically represent basic characteristics of armed forces personnel in Bangladesh with almost equal number of high effort and reward score as well as high ERI ratio.

Bangladesh Armed Forces Med J Vol 58 No (2) December 2025, pp 11-20