Prolonged standing at work and hospitalisation due to varicose veins: a 12 year prospective study of the Danish population: Table 1

Abstract

Background: Recent studies suggest that prolonged standing at work is associated with the development of diseases of varicose veins (VV). Aims: To assess the risk of hospitalisation due to VV in the lower extremities prospectively in workers standing or walking at least 75% of their time at work. Methods: A representative random sample of 9653 working age adults was drawn from the Central Population Register of Denmark in 1991. Of these, 8664 accepted to be interviewed by telephone (response rate 90%). Respondents (2939 men and 2708 women) were 20-59 years old and employed in 1990. Risk ratios for VV were estimated by log-linear Poisson regression models separately for men and women with adjustment for smoking status, body mass index (BMI), heavy lifting, and, for females only, number of children at baseline. Results: During 12 years of follow up, 40 hospitalisations due to VV were observed among the men and 71 among the women. For employees with jobs that require prolonged standing or walking compared to all other employees, the relative risk was 1.75 (95% CI 0.92 to 3.34) for men and 1.82 (95% CI 1.12 to 2.95) for women. The pooled estimate of the relative risk was 1.78 (95% CI 1.19 to 2.68). The aetiological fraction of prolonged standing or walking at work was estimated as 22.5% for men and 22.6% for women. Conclusions: This prospective study confirms that prolonged standing at work constitutes an excess risk of hospital treatment due to varicose veins and accounts for more than one fifth of all cases of working age.

Relationship between unemployment and health among health care professionals: Health selection or health effect?

“…Interpretation of this finding is difficult because diseases of the circulatory system include a large range of diagnoses from rather benign ones such as varicose veins to serious, even lifethreatening, diseases such as coronary heart disease. Prolonged standing at work (which is very common for nurses) has been found to be a risk factor for hospital treatment due to varicose veins [35]. One possible explanation could be that nurses who treat these problems overall take better care of themselves and may have lower levels of other risk factors relevant to unemployment.…”

Standing Posture at Work Does Not Increase the Risk of Varicose Veins among Health Care Providers in Taiwan

“…Prolonged standing or walking due to occupational exposure has been suggested to be a cause of VV [2,11,12] . In a longitudinal study with a large sample size in Denmark, workers who stood or walked for 6-7.3 h had a significantly higher risk of surgery of VV than workers who stood or worked for less than 4 h (adjusted hazard ratio 3.17 in men and 2.34 in women) [2] .…”

Orthostatic symptoms, blood pressure and working postures of factory and service workers over an observed workday

“…It is thought that an outward plasma fluid shift leading to transient interstitial oedema of the lower limbs can lead to acute venous insufficiency (Flore et al, 2004;Novak et al, 1998;van Lieshout et al, 2001). Tuchsen et al (2005) have shown that prolonged standing is associated with varicose veins in a working population.…”

“…Prolonged standing at work has been associated with a variety of adverse effects (McCulloch, 2002), such as lower extremity discomfort (Messing et al, 2006), varicose veins (Tuchsen et al, 2005), chronic venous insufficiency (Krijnen et al, 1997a, b) and progression of carotid artery disease (Krause et al, 2000). However, the precise mechanisms linking different standing postures to health effects are not known.…”