Assessment of Psychological Distress among Workers of a Confectionary
Abstract
Objective: Psychiatric distress and work related stress may have a profound effect on an individual's well-being .The aim of this study was to estimate the prevalence rate of mental health problems and their distribution by age, educational level, marital status and years of employment in a chocolate manufacturing company in Iran .The General Health Questionnaire (a widely used screening instrument) which detects a wide range of psychological problems, mainly anxiety/depression spectrum, was used in this study.
Method: The study group consisted of 144 workers who were screened using the GHQ-28 in the Persian language version. Workers with a GHQ score of 6 or more were defined as having psychiatric distress. Multiple logistic regression was performed to assess the odds ratios (ORs) for mental health problems including age, years of employment, marital status and educational level of the GHQ.
Results: The prevalence of suspected mental health problems increased with age and years of employment (range 16.7%-41.2% and 15.2%-36.8%, respectively). The increased risks for mental health problems were observed for the range 11-20 (OR = 3.1; 95% CI 1.1-8.4) and >20 years employment (OR=3.7; 95%CI 1.2-11.3).
Conclusions: The study results demonstrated a significant association between years of employment and suspected mental health problems.
Murray CJL, Lopez AD. The Global Burden of Disease: a Comprehensive Assessment of Mortality and Disability from Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors in 1990 and Projected to 2020. Global Burden of Disease and Injury series; v. 1. Links 1996.
Noorbala AA, Mohammad K, Bagheri Yazdi SA. The epidemiological study of mental health problems in Tehran. J Hakim 1998; 4: 212-223.
Lobo A, Perez-Echeverria MJ, Artal J. Validity of the scaled version of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) in a Spanish population. Psychol Med 1986; 16: 135-140.
Schrnitz N, Kruse J, Tress W. Psychometric properties of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) in a German primary care sample. Acta Psychiatr Scand 1999; 100: 462-468.
Werneke U, Goldberg DP, Yalcin I, Ustun BT. The stability of the factor structure of the General Health Questionnaire. Psychol Med 2000; 30: 823.
Goldberg DP. The detection of psychiatric illness by questionnaire: London: Oxford University Press; 1972.
Goldberg DP. Manual of the General Health Questionnaire. Windsor, England: NFER Publishing Co; 1978.
Goldberg D, Williams P. A User’s Guide to the General Health Questionnaire Windsor, UK: NFER-Nelson; 1988.
Banks MH. Validation of the General Health Questionnaire in a young community sample. Psychol Med 1983; 13: 349-353.
Krol B, Sanderman R, Moum T, Suurmeijer T, Doeglas D, Krijnen W, et al. A comparison of the General Health Questionnaire-28 between patients with rheumatoid arthritis from the Netherlands, France, Sweden and Norway. Eur J Psychol Assess 1994; 10: 93-101.
Sanderman R, Stewart R. The assessment of psychological distress: Psychometric properties of the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Int J Health Sci 1990; 1: 195-202.
Nagyova I, Krol B, Szilasiova A, Stewart R, van Dijk J, van den Heuvel W. General Health Questionnaire-28: psychometric evaluation of the Slovak version. Stud Psychol 2000; 42: 351-361.
Noorbala AA, Mohammad K. Bagheri-Yazdi, SA. Validation of the General Health Questionnaire in a young community sample. J Hakim 1999; 5: 101-110.
Noorbala AA, Yazdi SAB, Yasamy MT, Mohammad K. Mental health survey of the adult population in Iran. Br J Psychiatry 2004; 184: 70.
Sauter S ML, Colligan M, Swanson N, Hurrell JJ, Scharf FJ, et al. Stress at work [Monograph on the Internet]. Washington DC: NIOSH Publication; 2003. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/stresswk.html.
The World Health Organization. The Burden of Occupational Illness un Agencies Sound the Alarm [monograph on the Internet]. UNISANTE GENEVA: Press Release WHO; 1999. Available from: www.who.int/inf-pr- 1999/en/pr99-31.html.
Costa G. Occupational stress and stress prevention in air traffic. International Labour Office: Working paper: CONDI/T/WP. 6/1995, Geneva; 1995.
Edwards D, Burnard P. A systematic review of stress and stress management interventions for mental health nurses. J Adv Nurs 2003; 42: 169-200.
Vieweg BW, Hedlund JL. The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ): A comprehensive review. J Oper Psychiatr 1983; 14: 74-81.
Fletcher BC. The epidemiology of occupational stress. In: C. L. Cooper, Payne R, eds. Causes, Coping and Consequences of Stress
at Work. New York: John Wiley and Sons; 1988:3-52.
DeFrank RS, Ivancevich JM. Stress on the job: an executive update. Academy of Management Executive 1998; 12: 55–66.
Sparks K, Cooper CL. Occupational differences in the work-strain relationship: Towards the use of situation-specific models. J Occup Organ Psychol 1999; 72: 219-229.
Burke RJ. Sources of managerial and professional stress in large organisations. In: C. L. Cooper , Payne R, ed. Causes, coping and consequences of stress at work. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons; 1988:77-12.
Arghami S, Seraji JN, Mohammad K, Zamani GH, Farhangi A, Vuuren WV. Mental Health in High-Tech System. Iranian J Publ Health 2005; 34: 31-37.
Hashemi Nazari S, Khosravi J, Faghihzadeh S, Etemadzadeh SH. [A survey of mental health among fire department employees by GHQ-28 questionnaire in 2005]. Hakim J 2007; 10: 56-64.
Ohta M, Mizoue T, Mishima N, Ikeda M. Effect of the Physical Activities in Leisure Time and Commuting to Work on Mental Health. J Occup Health 2007; 49: 46-52.
Shahrokhi A. General health status of female workers in Qazvin factories. The Journal of Qazvin Univ. of Med. Sci. 2003; 28: 32-35.
Lee CK, Kwak YS, Yamamoto J, Rhee H, Kim
YS, Han JH, et al. Psychiatric epidemiology in Korea. Part I: Gender and age differences in Seoul. J Nerv Ment Dis 1990; 178: 242-246.
Kringlen E. A Norwegian Psychiatric Epidemiological Study. Am J Psychiatry 2001; 158: 1091-1098.
Kessler RC, McGonagle KA, Zhao S, Nelson CB, Hughes M, Eshleman S, et al. Lifetime and 12-month prevalence of DSM-III-R mental health problems in the United States. Results from the National Comorbidity Survey. Arch Gen Psychiatry 1994; 51: 8-19.
Andrade L, Caraveo-Anduaga JJ, Berglund P. Cross-national comparisons of the prevalences and correlates of mental disorders. Bull World Health Organ 2000; 78: 413-426.
Fujino Y, Mizoue T, Izumi H, Kumashiro M, Hasegawa T, Yoshimura T. Job Stress and Mental Health among Permanent Night Workers. J Occup Health 2001; 43: 301-306.
Calnan M, Wainwright D, Forsythe M, Wall B, Almond S. Mental health and stress in the workplace: the case of general practice in the UK. Soc Sci Med 2001; 52: 499-507.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 2 No 3 (2007) | |
| Section | Articles | |
| Keywords | ||
| Food industry Mental health Occupational Health Prevalence | ||
| Rights and permissions | |
|
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
