Travel to work and self-reported stress: Findings from a workplace survey in south west Sydney, Australia

Objective: To examine the association between self-reported stress from commuting and travel mode to work in an Australian urban context. Methods: An on-line cross-sectional survey of hospital staff travel behaviour was conducted in September 2011. Respondents were asked about their daily travel to work over 7 days, the stress of their commute relative to the rest of their working day, physical activity over the previous week, plus demographic information. Logistic regression was used to investigate the association of travel mode to work with stress. Results: There were 675 survey respondents, with 14.7% actively commuting (walking, cycling or using public transport). Active commuters reported a lower level of stress (10.3%) compared with car drivers (26.1%) with an adjusted odds ratio of 0.35, 95% confidence interval 0.17-0.73, P<0.05. Conclusions: Active travel to work was perceived to be less stressful than car commuting relative to the stress of a work day. These data are among the first in Australia to consider variation in self-reported stress by travel mode.