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The influence of total number of favourable working conditions and lifestyle on mental health in Japanese workers in a large company
Author(s) -
Suwazono Yasushi,
Okubo Yasushi,
Kobayashi Etsuko,
Kido Teruhiko,
Nogawa Koji
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
stress and health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.009
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1532-2998
pISSN - 1532-3005
DOI - 10.1002/smi.962
Subject(s) - mental health , gerontology , disease , medicine , cross sectional study , mental illness , psychology , demography , psychiatry , pathology , sociology
Healthy Work and Lifestyle Scores were totalled, and their influence on the prevalence of mental symptoms was investigated. A cross‐sectional design was employed in this study. Participants were workers in a telecommunications enterprise who had received annual health check‐ups from 1995 to 1997 and were between 20 and 59 years of age. A self‐administered questionnaire survey obtaining information about sex, age, past history of disease, present illness, working conditions, lifestyle and subjective mental symptoms was conducted once a year. Workers with a past history of disease or present illness were excluded from the analysis. In total, 66 004 questionnaires were analysed in this study. Favourable lifestyles and working conditions were enumerated; Healthy Work and Lifestyle Scores were totalled, and their influence on mental symptoms was also investigated. It was found that for every year, the result of ANCOVA suggested that the lower the Healthy Work and Lifestyle Scores, the higher the age‐adjusted mean number of perceived mental symptoms. The results of multiple comparisons revealed significant deterioration in the number of perceived mental symptoms in the groups whose Healthy Work and Lifestyle Scores were 0–4‐, 5‐ and 6‐point. This comprehensive score suggested that working conditions and lifestyle correlated with the mental health of Japanese workers. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.