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Paternal work stress and prolonged time to pregnancy

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Abstract

Objective

The aim of this study was to explore an association between psychosocial stress at work in married men and their spouses’ prolonged time to pregnancy (TTP).

Methods

All married male workers of a large Korean petrochemical enterprise and their wives fulfilling the selection criteria were included. Main selection criteria were lack of use of contraceptives and experienced pregnancy in recent past. Data were available from 322 couples. Psychosocial stress at work was measured by the effort–reward imbalance questionnaire. Prolonged TTP was measured by the “TTP questionnaire”.

Results

After adjustment for confounding effects of demographic and life-style characteristics and benzene exposure, delayed TTP, defined by frequency of first-cycle pregnancy, was associated with one standard deviation (SD) increase of the effort–reward ratio in the chronically stressed group of married men (OR = 0.47; 95% CI = 0.22–0.99) in logistic regression analysis. A similar, but somewhat weaker effect, was found for the overall group (OR = 0.67; 95% CI = 0.47–0.94).

Conclusions

Paternal stress at work, as measured by effort–reward imbalance, seemed to be associated with a decreased number of conceptions in the first menstrual cycle.

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Acknowledgments

This study was partially supported by the Brain Korea 21 Project from the Ministry of Education and Human Resources, Republic of Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, School of Public Health and Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Mi-Sun Lee, Domyung Paek, Ki-Do Eum & Hye-Eun Lee

  2. Department of Medical Sociology, University of Duesseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Johannes Siegrist

  3. Department of Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Jian Li

  4. Center for Occupational Disease Research, Occupational Safety & Health Research Institute, Korea Occupational Safety and Health Agency, Inchon, Republic of Korea

    Hye-Eun Lee

  5. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health and Institute of Health and Environment, Seoul National University, 28 Yeongun-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-799, Republic of Korea

    Sung-Il Cho

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  1. Mi-Sun Lee
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Correspondence to Sung-Il Cho.

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Lee, MS., Paek, D., Eum, KD. et al. Paternal work stress and prolonged time to pregnancy. Int Arch Occup Environ Health 82, 209–216 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-008-0324-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00420-008-0324-2

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