Correlation between occupational stress and salivary cortisol concentration in employees

Abstract

To investigate the influence of occupational stress on salivary cortisol concentration in employees. In September 2014, occupational stress evaluation was performed for 186 employees in a solar photovoltaic company, and enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to measure the salivary cortisol concentration. The salivary cortisol concentration showed no significant differences between groups with different demographic features(P>0.05). The group with a high score of job control had a significantly lower salivary cortisol concentration than that with a low score(74.62±15.34 μg/L vs 79.95±12.99 μg/L, P<0.05). The groups with high scores of job danger and job responsibility and burden had significantly higher salivary cortisol concentrations than those with low scores(80.29±9.45 μg/L vs 75.60±16.41, P<0.05; 80.94±10.87 μg/L vs 74.05±16.35 μg/L, P<0.05). The salivary cortisol concentration was positively correlated with the scores of job danger and job responsibility and burden(r=0.176 and 0.252, P<0.05) and negatively correlated with the score of job control(r=-0.208, P<0.05). Salivary cortisol concentration is positively correlated with occupational stress and increases with the increasing degree of occupational stress, and can be used as an objective biomarker for the identification and evaluation of occupational stress.