Components of Stress and Their Associations With Sleep Problems : A Cohort Study of Older Employees

Abstract

Objective: To identify latent components from among 13 work and nonwork stressors and to examine whether the accumulation of stress factors within these components was associated with sleep problems.

Methods: A cohort of older employees (n = 2771 individuals, n = 3921 person-observations) responded to at least two surveys. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) was used to identify latent components. Analysis of variance was used to examine their associations with sleep.

Results: The components were: “Physical workload and shift work,” “Psychosocial workload,” “Social and environmental nonwork adversity,” and “Life event- and health-related nonwork adversity.” They were consistently associated with sleep problems, except for “Physical workload and shift work.” “Social and environmental nonwork adversity” was associated with sleep problems at follow-up.

Conclusions: Clusters of work- and nonwork-related stressors were identified, and their accumulation was associated with sleep problems among older employees.