OR3-1STRESSFUL EXPOSURE TO THE PUBLIC IN THE WORKPLACE IS ASSOCIATED WITH ALCOHOL USE: FINDINGS FROM THE CONSTANCES COHORT

Abstract

The associations between alcohol use disorder and emotional job demand have been sparsely explored despite of considerable increase in tertiary sector occupations in western countries. Since emotional job demand result from stressful exposure to the public, we examine the associations between alcohol use and stressful exposure to the public in the workplace, in men and women, separately. Material and methods: From the French population-based Constances cohort, we included 10,794 men and 14,040 women who declared a current job with an almost daily exposure to the public and who did not have any missing data regarding our three categorical dependent variables: weekly alcohol consumption (cutsoff of 28(14)drinks per week in men (women), 43(29) and 71(43) defined low, medium and high or very high categories, respectively, as recommended by the WHO guidelines), heavy episodic drinking (never/at most once a month/more than once a month) and alcohol use risk using the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (mild/ dangerous/problematic or dependence). Logistic regressions provided age-adjusted risk ratios (RRs) of alcohol use following the selfreported frequency of stressful situations in the relationships with the public in the workplace (often compared to rarely). Multivariable analyses were adjusted for occupational status, marital status, household income, level of education and either depressive symptoms or perceived health status or effort-reward imbalance. Results: Among women, we found that stressful exposure to the public was positively associated with weekly alcohol consumption (RR(95%CI) = 1.18(1.01-1.38) and RR(95%CI) = 1.54(1.10-2.17) for medium and for high or very high versus low, respectively) and with alcohol use risk (RR(95%CI) = 1.32(1.14-1.52) and RR(95% CI) = 2.12(1.44-3.11) for dangerous and for problematic or dependence versus mild, respectively). Among men, stressful exposure to the public was positively associated with heavy episodic drinking (RR(95%CI) = 1.24(1.07-1.45) for more than once a month versus never). All these findings remained significant in multivariable analyses except for medium versus low weekly alcohol consumption in women after adjustment for depressive symptoms. Conclusions: Our results highlight the importance of building preventive or screening strategies in order to reduce the impact of emotional job demand on alcohol use, especially as psychological interventions exist to reduce the emotional impact of exposure to the public.