Does work stress affect neurocognitive functions? Case of Moroccan workers

Depending on its stage, stress influences cognitive functions. Indeed, several authors have ensured the degradation of cognitive functions by stress. Others did not find any association between the two. A third group of authors claimed that stress improves the performance of certain cognitive functions. Faced with this inconsistency of results, we conducted this study with the aim of finding out whether job stress alters or stimulates cognitive functions. Our study focused on 102 workers who were asked to freely and anonymously complete a questionnaire deemed relevant at the international scale. The age of the participants is between 22 and 60 years old with an average of 37 years and a standard deviation of 11 years. The population is made up of 77% of men and 23% of women. For the school level of the subjects: 50% of the subjects have a level bac to bac+2, 30% have a level higher than bac+2 and 20% have a level lower than bac. The professional status of workers is divided into three types: 48% are supervisors and technicians, 32% are executing workers and 20% are senior managers. The participants underwent two neurocognitive tests using the ELIAN software. Analysis of the results shows that there is no significant link between work stress and the cognitive functions studied. However, the analysis of the results of each socio-professional category separately shows that stress significantly reduces the visual working memory score of young people (< 40 years old), as well as the ability to concentrate of subjects with a school level higher than bac+2. While it improves visual perception in men and old people over the age of 40. There are significant links between some cognitive performances and the socio-professional characteristics of the stressed subjects. Therefore, work stress can affect neurocognitive health, which is more serious. In order to understand the relationship between work or chronic stress and cognition as well as their moderating factors, it is advisable to increase the size of the sample and to diversify the cognitive functions studied as well as their tasks.