Explaining why so many cases of cardiac arrest strike in the morning

What time of the day are heart attacks most common, why? How do we know if someone is having a heart attack and what should we do if someone has an attack?

You’ve probably heard all the risk factors for a heart attack. Family history, high blood pressure, being overweight, a sedentary lifestyle, having a complete idiot for a boss…

Say what?

Yes, that’s right. To the list of risk factors for heart disease, we must add the misfortune of having a boss who is unfair, arbitrary, inconsiderate, and generally deficient in managerial skills.

That’s the finding of Swedish researchers, who say that having a boss with these characteristics raises a worker’s chance of having a heart attack by as much as 60 per cent.

Researchers from the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Karolinska Institute and the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University surveyed 3,000 male workers, mostly well-educated, aged between 19 and 65 (average age 42) over a three-year period from 1992.

The researchers gave the workers a series of medical tests and took a medical history. Workers were given a questionnaire to rate their bosses’ workplace performance – how good the boss was at communicating and giving feedback, at managing change in the organisation, at setting goals, and delegating tasks.

The researchers then checked the following 10 years worth of data from a Swedish national registry of hospital admissions to see if any of these workers were listed as having suffered or died from ischaemic heart disease.

Amongst these workers, there were 74 cases of heart attack, unstable angina or cardiac arrest over the 10-year period.

The researchers a took into account other common factors that might contribute to heart disease – education, social class, income, smoking, amount of exercise, BMI (Body Mass Index), blood fats, and diabetes.

Then the researchers analysed the data and found a correlation between heart disease, and a workplace with a high managerial dissatisfaction rating.

Workers whose managers had been described in the original survey as inconsiderate, opaque, uncommunicative, and poor advocates had a 25 per cent increased risk of heart attack, compared to the general population.

The longer an employee worked for a bad boss, the more likely the worker was to have a heart attack. If they’d worked for that manager for four years or more, the extra risk increased by 60 per cent. Working for a bad boss was actually more of a risk factor for heart disease than smoking, lack of exercise, or being overweight, the researchers calculated.

Employees whose managers exhibited positive skills were up to 40 per cent less likely to suffer heart attacks and angina than the general population.

What was it about a bad manager that increased the risk of heart disease? Probably the stress caused by poor decision-making, which not only causes confusion about an individual’s roles and responsibilities within the organisation, but creates conflicts amongst employees.

Stress elevates levels of ‘fight and flight’ hormones like cortisol and adrenaline in the bloodstream, raises blood pressure, and makes the heart pump harder and faster, all of which increases the strain on the heart.

Past studies have directly linked stress with atherosclerosis, the disease of the arteries that in turn causes heart disease.

Lessons for managers

There’s a message for managers in these findings, say the authors.

An organisation needs to work on improving managers’ skills to make sure they treat employees with consideration; set clear goals; set realistic expectations; communicate and give feedback; include subordinates in decision-making; delegate authority and manage change effectively within the organisation.

If they can do this they’ll be rewarded with a healthy workforce with high levels of productivity and low absenteeism.

For workers, then message is, if your boss is a buffoon and a menace, you need to do something about it. If you can’t effect change yourself, move to a different job in the same organisation, or another organisation with more competent management.

On the other hand, if you do have a good boss, hang on to him or her. A good manager can reduce your risk of a heart attack by 20 per cent and if you stay with that boss for four years or more, the risk is reduced by 40 per cent.

And that’s not a bad fringe benefit.

Call 877-970-9009 or visit www.heart-saverinstitute.com to take a CPR & First Aid class