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Work related stress can highly negatively affect not only company's productivity but also other aspects causing increased costs for absenteeism, increased number of work accident and near miss, higher turnover, reduced quality of products and services, reduced capability of renewal, and so on. In agreement with the Italian legislative decree 81/08 we evaluated stress level of workers of three different sanitary structures located in the middle of Italy. 305 workers (physicians, nurses, technicians, auxiliary nurse, white collars) were submitted to a questionnaire designed by our team of work. The sector reporting higher stress level was represented by nurses, the sector with lower stress level was made of technicians. We proposed a set of measures aiming to reduce the load of stress based on the assumption that in this sector is fundamental to develop strategies of intervention both at organizational and individual level.

One hundred and twenty-two patients suffering from slight or moderate essential arterial hypertension with a previous history of myocardial infarction were selected for inclusion in this study. Patients were divided into two groups of 61 according to the type of anti-hypertensive therapy received. Patients in group 1 received nifedipine (30 mg p.d.), while patients in group 2 were treated using other anti-hypertensive therapy (diuretics, alpha-methyldopa, clonidine, indapamide). At the end of the follow-up period, which lasted 5 years, a statistically significant improvement in the following factors was observed in group 1 in comparison to the control group: (a) an improved response of both SBP (p less than 0.001) and DBP (p less than 0.001) levels to anti-hypertensive therapy; (b) a more significant diminution in the thickness of the interventricular septum (p less than 0.001) and the posterior wall of the left ventricle (p less than 0.001) assessed using ultrasonography; (c) a reduced number of cases of post-infarction angina (p less than 0.05); (d) fewer cases of recurrent infarction (p less than 0.05); (e) fewer deaths as a result of re-infarction (p less than 0.01). These results confirm that the vascular and cardioprotective effects of nifedipine give a good long-term outcome in hypertensive patients with a previous history of myocardial infarction.