Behavioral Lifestyle and Mental Health Status of Japanese Factory Workers

doi:10.1006/pmed.1994.1014

Preventive Medicine

Volume 23, Issue 1, January 1994, Pages 98-105

https://doi.org/10.1006/pmed.1994.1014 Get rights and content

Abstract

Background. Lifestyle factors, sometimes associated with physical health and mortality, have also been known to be associated with mental health status. This study seeks to correlate behavioral lifestyles with major components of mental health among Japanese factory workers. Method. We administered the 28-item version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) and a questionnaire concerning eight personal health practices to 2,132 male and 668 female factory workers at a camera-manufacturing company in Japan. Results. There were strong negative relationships of a higher total number of favorable lifestyles as indicated by the Health Practice Index (HPI) to psychological distress and its components: somatic symptoms, anxiety-insomnia, and social dysfunction. After controlling for the effects of confounding factors that included age, marital status, and somatic condition, multiple logistic regression analysis indicated that five of the eight health factors among male workers-mental stress, nutritional balance, eating breakfast regularly, physical exercise, and working hours-were significantly related to the grade of psychological distress or its three components. Among female workers, five health practices, i.e., mental stress, physical exercise, sleeping hours, working hours, and cigarette smoking, were significantly associated with the grade of psychological distress or its three components. Conclusion. Good health practices might be individually and as a whole associated with better mental health status in factory workers.

References (0)

Cited by (129)

Effects of an interactive coaching intervention on quality of life and psychological factors for colorectal cancer survivors: A single group pre and posttest design
2023, European Journal of Oncology Nursing
To develop and evaluate the effects of an interactive coaching intervention, using a self-management mobile application, on quality of life and physical and psychological factors for colorectal cancer survivors.
We developed a self-management mobile application providing social support services for post-treatment CRC survivors and evaluated its effects through baseline and post-intervention surveys. Using the biopsychosocial holistic model as the theoretical framework, automated interactive coaching technology was applied for six weeks to provide supportive services tailored for each user. To evaluate the effects of the application, self-efficacy, health practice index, depression, fear of cancer recurrence, and quality of life measures were administered to participants. A total of 34 men and 5 women were included in the analysis.
Participants’ mean age were 54.10 years and 78% of them had been diagnosed within the last five years. There were significant increases in self-efficacy (z = 2.09, p = .04), health practice index (t = 2.35, p = .02), and quality of life (t = 2.03, p = .05). More specifically, the emotional functional score increased (z = 2.23, p = .03) while both of the total symptom score (t = 2.10, p = .04) and the fatigue symptom score (z = 2.54, p = .01) decreased after six weeks of using the mobile application.
Interventions supporting colorectal cancer survivors’ self-management are critical for addressing the challenges they face after treatment and improving their quality of life. Providing social support through mobile applications could be a good strategy in terms of usability and effectiveness.
Does social capital and a healthier lifestyle increase mental health resilience to disability acquisition? Group-based discrete trajectory mixture models of pre-post longitudinal data
2019, Social Science and Medicine
Citation Excerpt :
Mental health is influenced by general living conditions, major life events and everyday experiences that can be altered by individuals (Velten et al., 2014; Hori et al., 2016). Observational epidemiologic studies report some lifestyles are associated with mental health in adults (Ezoe and Morimoto, 1994; Rohrer et al., 2005; Kawada et al., 2011) and adolescents (Chen et al., 2005), such as physical activity (Goodwin, 2003; De Mello et al., 2013), smoking (Fluharty et al., 2016; Jorm, 1999), alcohol consumption (Tembo et al., 2017; Bell and Britton, 2014) and long working hours (Ogawa et al., 2018; Afonso et al., 2017; Virtanen et al., 2011). However, longitudinal studies that explicitly align putative interventions prior to potential changes in mental health in pre-post studies of disability acquisition remain fairly rare (Kavanagh et al., 2015; Milner et al., 2014; Mithen et al., 2015).
Poor mental health is strongly associated with disability acquisition. Social capital and healthier lifestyles pre-disability onset may help promote mental health resilience (i.e. a state of seemingly being unaffected by the event), or the capacity to ‘bounce back’, post-acquisition. This paper used a novel methodology (discrete trajectory mixture models) to examine discrete trajectories in mental health before and after disability acquisition in the Household Income Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey. Group membership in association with pre-onset social capital and healthy lifestyles were then examined using multinomial logistic regressions. Four discrete trajectory groups were identified in 2904 Australians reporting onset of ongoing disability, with about 28.4% demonstrating mental health resilience. Three other groups were identified, each demonstrating increasingly severe reductions in mental health. No clear ‘bounce back’ group was observed. Group membership was associated with participants who felt they had ‘no-help from others’ prior to disability acquisition. Pre-disability acquisition measures of social capital and unhealthy behaviours moderated the association between disability acquisition and mental health trajectories. Social capital was protective only for the respondents who had poorer mental health before disability onset and had less resilience after onset, and long working hours and less resilience were positively associated. Public policies that help to enhance levels of social capital and reduce unhealthy behaviours at a population level may help to promote mental health resilience to adversities such as the acquisition of disability.
Does high optimism protect against the inter-generational transmission of high BMI? The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study
2017, Journal of Psychosomatic Research
Citation Excerpt :
One possibility for the sex-specific outcomes in our study could be that having a positive outlook has a stronger association with certain health behaviours that protect against weight gain in women compared to men. Previous studies have found that low mood and psychological distress was associated with different health behaviours in men and women, including poor dietary behaviours and lack of exercise in women [20,21]. Alternatively, perhaps optimism protects women more than men against chronic psychosocial stress and its impact on health, for which women may be more vulnerable [22], and which may exacerbate weight gain [17].
The transmission of overweight from one generation to the next is well established, however little is known about what psychosocial factors may protect against this familial risk. The aim of this study was to examine whether optimism plays a role in the intergenerational transmission of obesity.
Our sample included 1043 participants from the prospective Cardiovascular Risk in Young FINNS Study. Optimism was measured in early adulthood (2001) when the cohort was aged 24–39 years. BMI was measured in 2001 (baseline) and 2012 when they were aged 35–50 years. Parental BMI was measured in 1980. Hierarchical linear regression and logistic regression were used to examine the association between optimism and future BMI/obesity, and whether an interaction existed between optimism and parental BMI when predicting BMI/obesity 11 years later.
High optimism in young adulthood demonstrated a negative relationship with high BMI in mid-adulthood, but only in women (β = − 0.127, p = 0.001). The optimism × maternal BMI interaction term was a significant predictor of future BMI in women (β = − 0.588, p = 0.036). The logistic regression results confirmed that high optimism predicted reduced obesity in women (OR = 0.68, 95% CI, 0.55–0.86), however the optimism × maternal obesity interaction term was not a significant predictor (OR = 0.50, 95% CI, 0.10–2.48).
Our findings supported our hypothesis that high optimism mitigated the intergenerational transmission of high BMI, but only in women. These findings also provided evidence that positive psychosocial factors such as optimism are associated with long-term protective effects on BMI in women.
Breakfast consumption and depressive mood: A focus on socioeconomic status
2017, Appetite
Citation Excerpt :
Higher income and educational level were associated with a decrease in depression rates in both “seldom” and “sometimes” breakfast consumption groups. Low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with skipping breakfast (Keski-Rahkonen, Kaprio, Rissanen, Virkkunen, & Rose, 2003) and less-balanced diets (Ezoe & Morimoto, 1994). Nutritional deficiencies due to a lack of breakfast may lead to lower energy levels for everyday activities and low mood and may explain why low-SES groups’ depression rates appear to be more sensitive to breakfast consumption frequency.
Skipping breakfast can be potentially harmful because breakfast consumption is considered one of the important health-related behaviors that benefit physical and mental health. As the rate of depression has increased recently, we investigated the association between the frequency of eating breakfast and depression in adults. We obtained the data from the 2013 Korean Community Health Survey; a total of 207,710 survey participants aged 20 years or over were studied. Participants were categorized into three groups by the frequency of breakfast consumption as follows: “seldom,” “sometimes,” and “always.” We performed a multiple logistic regression to investigate the association between breakfast consumption and depressive mood. Subgroup analyses were conducted by stratifying socioeconomic variables controlling for variables known to be associated with depressive symptoms. Participants who had breakfast seldom or sometimes had higher depressive symptoms than those who always ate breakfast (“seldom”: OR = 1.43, 95% CI 1.36–1.52; “sometimes”: OR = 1.32, 95% CI 1.23–1.40). Subgroup analyses showed that this association was more marked in those who were 80 years or older, those who had low household income, or those with elementary school education level or less. The result of this study suggests that lack of breakfast consumption is associated with depression among adults with different socioeconomic factors.
Understanding the Resilience of Garment Workers’ Families Through a Mixed-Method Approach: Surviving the Economic Hardship During the Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia
2024, Social Indicators Research
Association of Cigarette Smoking with Depression and Anxiety in Middle-Aged Adults: a Large Cross-Sectional Study among Iranian Industrial Manufacturing Employees
2023, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction

View all citing articles on Scopus

View full text

Regular ArticleBehavioral Lifestyle and Mental Health Status of Japanese Factory Workers

Abstract

Regular Article
Behavioral Lifestyle and Mental Health Status of Japanese Factory Workers