Is work engagement related to healthy cardiac autonomic activity? Evidence from a field study among Finnish women workers

The present study investigated whether work engagement is related to and can explain healthy cardiac autonomic activity as indicated by decreased heart rate (HR; i.e., sympathetic and parasympathetic activity) and increased high-frequency power (HFP) of heart rate variability (i.e., parasympathetic activity). A total of 30 healthy Finnish female cleaning workers underwent an ambulatory monitoring period of two nights and two regular workdays, and mean values of work period HR and HFP were utilized as dependent variables. Correlations revealed that work engagement was, as hypothesized, negatively related to HR and positively to HFP. Furthermore, in hierarchical linear regression analysis, work engagement accounted for an additional 19% of the variance explained in HFP, independent of individual baseline, age, Body Mass Index, physical fitness, and medication. However, the explanation rate for HR did not reach statistical significance. The findings suggest that work engagement is associated with healthy, adaptable cardiac autonomic activity, particularly increased parasympathetic activity.

[1]  A. Tolvanen,et al.  The Construct Validity of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale: Multisample and Longitudinal Evidence , 2008 .

[2]  Julian F Thayer,et al.  Heart rate response is longer after negative emotions than after positive emotions. , 2003, International journal of psychophysiology : official journal of the International Organization of Psychophysiology.

[3]  A. Bakker,et al.  The Measurement of Work Engagement With a Short Questionnaire , 2006 .

[4]  H. Nagaraja,et al.  Heart rate variability: origins, methods, and interpretive caveats. , 1997, Psychophysiology.

[5]  Christian Schindler,et al.  Heart rate variability in an ageing population and its association with lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factors: results of the SAPALDIA study. , 2006, Europace : European pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac electrophysiology : journal of the working groups on cardiac pacing, arrhythmias, and cardiac cellular electrophysiology of the European Society of Cardiology.

[6]  A. Bakker,et al.  The Measurement of Engagement and Burnout: A Two Sample Confirmatory Factor Analytic Approach , 2002 .

[7]  B. Fredrickson,et al.  The Undoing Effect of Positive Emotions , 2000, Motivation and emotion.

[8]  S. Manuck.  Cardiovascular reactivity in cardiovascular disease: “Once more unto the breach” , 1994, International journal of behavioral medicine.

[9]  W. Schaufeli,et al.  Job burnout. , 2001, Annual review of psychology.

[10]  Karina W Davidson,et al.  Don't worry, be happy: positive affect and reduced 10-year incident coronary heart disease: the Canadian Nova Scotia Health Survey. , 2010, European heart journal.

[11]  A. Bakker,et al.  Burnout versus work engagement in their effects on 24-hour ambulatory monitored cardiac autonomic function , 2009 .

[12]  Yoshiki Sugiyama,et al.  Effects of vital exhaustion on cardiac autonomic nervous functions assessed by heart rate variability at rest in middle-aged male workers , 2002, International journal of behavioral medicine.

[13]  H. Rusko,et al.  Intraindividual validation of heart rate variability indexes to measure vagal effects on hearts. , 2006, American journal of physiology. Heart and circulatory physiology.

[14]  J. Thayer,et al.  Psychosomatics and psychopathology: looking up and down from the brain , 2005, Psychoneuroendocrinology.

[15]  A. Bakker.  Building engagement in the workplace , 2008 .

[16]  G. Breithardt,et al.  Heart rate variability: standards of measurement, physiological interpretation and clinical use. Task Force of the European Society of Cardiology and the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. , 1996 .

[17]  S. A. Neumann,et al.  Similar patterns of cardiovascular response during emotional activation as a function of affective valence and arousal and gender. , 2001, Journal of psychosomatic research.

[18]  J. B. Carter,et al.  Effect of Endurance Exercise on Autonomic Control of Heart Rate , 2003, Sports medicine.

[19]  S. Knardahl.  Cardiovascular psychophysiology , 2000, Annals of medicine.

[20]  S. Steinhauer,et al.  Respiratory sinus arrhythmia as an index of emotional response in young adults. , 2004, Psychophysiology.

[21]  H Rusko,et al.  Effects of Moderate and Heavy Endurance Exercise on Nocturnal HRV , 2010, International journal of sports medicine.

[22]  Jonathon R. B. Halbesleben,et al.  A meta-analysis of work engagement: Relationships with burnout, demands, resources, and consequences. , 2010 .

[23]  Sami Saalasti,et al.  Neural networks for heart rate time series analysis , 2003 .

[24]  Michael P. Leiter,et al.  Work engagement: Introduction , 2010 .

[25]  M. Seligman.  Positive psychology, positive prevention, and positive therapy. , 2002 .

[26]  J T Cacioppo,et al.  Cardiac psychophysiology and autonomic space in humans: empirical perspectives and conceptual implications. , 1993, Psychological bulletin.

[27]  P S Freedson,et al.  Calibration of the Computer Science and Applications, Inc. accelerometer. , 1998, Medicine and science in sports and exercise.

[28]  I. Goldstein,et al.  Daily mood states and ambulatory blood pressure. , 1997, Psychophysiology.

[29]  Brooks C. Holtom,et al.  Survey response rate levels and trends in organizational research , 2008 .

[30]  Wilmar B. Schaufeli,et al.  Defining and measuring work engagement : Bringing clarity to the concept , 2010 .

[31]  A S Jackson,et al.  Prediction of functional aerobic capacity without exercise testing. , 1990, Medicine and science in sports and exercise.

[32]  Stephen W. Porges,et al.  Research methods for measurement of heart rate and respiration , 1992, Biological Psychology.

[33]  D. Watson,et al.  Development and validation of brief measures of positive and negative affect: the PANAS scales. , 1988, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[34]  P. Grossman,et al.  Toward understanding respiratory sinus arrhythmia: Relations to cardiac vagal tone, evolution and biobehavioral functions , 2007, Biological Psychology.

[35]  P. Landsbergis,et al.  Is job strain a major source of cardiovascular disease risk? , 2004, Scandinavian journal of work, environment & health.

[36]  J. Wardle,et al.  Positive affect and biological function in everyday life , 2005, Neurobiology of Aging.

[37]  M. Csíkszentmihályi,et al.  Positive psychology. An introduction. , 2000, The American psychologist.

[38]  Sheldon Cohen,et al.  Does positive affect influence health? , 2005, Psychological bulletin.

[39]  P. Stein,et al.  Vagal modulation and aging , 2007, Biological Psychology.

[40]  Wilmar B. Schaufeli,et al.  Work engagement: An emerging psychological concept , 2012 .

[41]  T. Meijman,et al.  Vagal cardiac control throughout the day: the relative importance of effort–reward imbalance and within-day measurements of mood, demand and satisfaction , 2001, Biological Psychology.

[42]  A. Malliani,et al.  Heart rate variability. Standards of measurement, physiological interpretation, and clinical use , 1996 .

[43]  A. Sherwood,et al.  Effects of daily stress on autonomic cardiac control in patients with coronary artery disease. , 2004, The American journal of cardiology.

[44]  Arie Shirom,et al.  Burnout and risk of cardiovascular disease: evidence, possible causal paths, and promising research directions. , 2006, Psychological bulletin.

[45]  M Myrtek,et al.  Stress and strain of blue and white collar workers during work and leisure time: results of psychophysiological and behavioral monitoring. , 1999, Applied ergonomics.

[46]  S. Sonnentag.  Recovery, work engagement, and proactive behavior: a new look at the interface between nonwork and work. , 2003, The Journal of applied psychology.

[47]  Julian F. Thayer,et al.  The role of vagal function in the risk for cardiovascular disease and mortality , 2007, Biological Psychology.

[48]  Sabine Sonnentag,et al.  Not all days are created equal : the concept of state work engagement , 2010 .

[49]  A. Bakker,et al.  Work engagement: An emerging concept in occupational health psychology , 2008, Bioscience trends.

[50]  J. Michael.  Textbook of Medical Physiology , 2005 .