Background Occupational stress is an important public health problem in the military. At present, there are few studies about occupational stress of officers and soldiers of the armed forces in China, especially the effects of plateau related environmental factors on occupational stress.

Objective To understand current status and identify influencing factors of occupational stress among officers and soldiers stationed in plateaus, and provide a scientific basis for managing occupational stress.

Methods In April 2023, stratified cluster sampling was used to recruit troops by deployed altitudes ranging from 500 to 3000 m into two strata of low altitude (＜2500 m) and high altitude (≥2500 m) based on the medical definition of plateau. Two regimental units were randomly selected from each stratum respectively, and one battalion unit was randomly selected from each regimental unit with all the officers and soldiers. Four selected battalion units were surveyed with a total of 2284 officers and soldiers. We designed a general questionnaire to collect their basic information, and distributed effort-reward imbalance questionnaires to evaluate occupational stress. We used logistic regression to identify potential influencing factors of occupational stress.

Results Positive occupational stress was reported in 508 plateau-stationed officers and soldiers, with a prevalence rate of 22.2%. The total effort-reward imbalance score and the dimensional scores of effort, reward, and overcommitment in M (P₂₅, P₇₅) were 0.9 (0.7, 1.0), 16.0 (13.0, 19.0), 36.0 (33.0, 39.0), and 18.0 (15.0, 19.0), respectively. There were significant differences in the positive rate of occupational stress by gender, age, military service length, marital status, only child or not, physical fitness condition, reporting underlying diseases or not, exercise frequency before conscription, psychological changes after entering the plateaus, and having altitude sickness or not (P <0.05). The results of logistic regression showed that being female (OR=1.532, 95%CI: 1.061, 2.213), only child (OR=1.281, 95%CI: 1.038, 1.581), and with underlying diseases (OR=1.950, 95%CI: 1.340, 2.839) were associated with a higher risk of occupational stress. While setting 0 to <3 years of military service as the control group, the risk of occupational stress was higher in subgroups of 3 to 9 years (OR=1.380, 95%CI: 1.113, 1.710) and ≥9 years (OR=2.141, 95%CI: 1.461, 3.137). The participants reporting nervousness or fear (OR=1.728, 95%CI: 1.133, 2.635) and agitation or euphoria (OR=1.380, 95%CI: 1.113, 1.710) had a higher risk of reporting occupational stress than those with no psychological changes after entering the plateaus. Meanwhile, those who had regular exercise (OR=0.670, 95%CI: 0.492, 0.913) before enlistment, good physical fitness condition (OR=0.572, 95%CI: 0.426, 0.767) and excellent physical fitness condition (OR=0.502, 95%CI: 0.366, 0.688) had a lower risk of occupational stress.

Conclusion Officers and soldiers in plateaus generally report a high rate of occupational stress. Female, military service length ≥3 years, being only child, with underlying diseases, nervousness/ fear or agitation/ euphoria after entering plateaus are risk factors for elevated occupational stress in this group; while good or excellent physical fitness condition and frequent exercise before enlistment are protective factors for occupational stress. Therefore, it is necessary to pay attention to the occupational stress problems in officers and soldiers stationed in plateaus and provide targeted intervention measures.