Correlation among measures of stress, indicators of biohumoral nature and medico-legal considerations

Man devotes most of the daily time to work, and also a large part of physical and mental resources. Depression and many other morbid conditions can be related etiopathologically to the performance of a dangerous occupation in terms of quality (hazardous work activities, lack of motivation for deficient career opportunities) or merely quantitative (duration of work shifts, frequency shifts work). The medical legal ascertainment is limited because stress cannot be valued by objective nature, but only through precious elements collected directly by workers by questionnaires. This is in response to legal requirements in terms of civil liability, occupational disease and disability. The objective of this study is to analyze the change of cytokines (IL-6, IL-12, TNF α) and stress-related hormones (prolactin and cortisol) in a sample of 314 individuals working at the University Hospital “Umberto I” in Rome without acute diseases but only with the "feeling stressed" for at least a month and to analyze if there is a correlation between some of these biochemical variables and stress values measured by questionnaire. The results of this study confirm the usefulness to associate laboratory analysis, such as the study of inflammatory cytokines and the hormonal profile, to psychometric tests, precious for the lower cost and in some cases also for the high diagnostic sensitivity, to reach a probative value which satisfies even the most demanding application of accuracy.