《cortisol in air traffic controllers》.pdf

BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY ELSEVIER Biological Psychology 42 (1996) 413-423 Effects of work demands on immunoglobulin A and cortisol in air traffic controllers Hans Zeie?‘“, Peter Brauchli”, Helen I. Joller-Jemelkab “Department of Behavioral Sciences, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Turnerstrasse I. CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland hDepartment of Clinical Immunology, University Hospital, University of Zurich, CH-8044 Zurich, Switzerland Abstract The professional activity of air traffic controllers (ATC) is often considered to be rather stressful. Certain characteristics of this job are likely to produce stress; for example an ATC can not predict when a situation becomes critical and he is not able to regulate the workload. In order to assess psychophysiological stress reactions in this working situation, saliva samples were taken from 158 male air traffic controllers before and after each of two working sessions. In contrast to the expected immunosuppressive effects, the working sessions caused a marked increase in the concentration and secretion rate of salivary immunoglobulin A (sIgA), as well as in the concentration of salivary cortisol. The increase in sIgA, however, was not correlated with the salivary cortisol response or with the amount of actual or perceived worklo