TUESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Patients who feel they are treated unfairly at their place of employment have a higher risk of coronary events and poor physical and mental function than those without a sense of unfairness, according to a study in the June issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Roberto De Vogli, Ph.D., from University College London in the United Kingdom, and colleagues asked 8,298 British civil servants to use a six-point scale to rank whether they felt they were treated unfairly. The association between unfairness and coronary events and health were examined over an average follow-up of 10.9 years.
The researchers found that there were 528 new cases of fatal coronary heart disease, non-fatal myocardial infarction and angina during the follow-up. Unfairness was strongly associated with low employment grade. After controlling for various factors, unfairness was associated with an increased risk of an incident coronary event (hazard ratio, 1.55), poor physical function (HR, 1.46), and poor mental function (HR, 1.54).
"Unfairness is an independent predictor of increased coronary events and impaired health functioning," De Vogli and colleagues conclude.
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