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Psychological factors including sense of coherence and some lifestyles are related to general health questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) in elderly workers in Japan

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Environmental Health and Preventive Medicine Aims and scope

Abstract

Objectives

The number of elderly workers has also been increasing and poor psychological well-being in elderly workers has been reported. The aim of this study is to elucidate the factors that are related to poor psychological well-being in elderly workers.

Methods

We administered General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) as an indicator of psychological well-being to 330 male elderly workers in the age range of 50–69, and analyzed different psychological factors, namely sense of coherence (SOC), and physical and lifestyle variables such as blood pressure, serum total cholesterol, smoking frequency, alcohol intake, exercise frequency, and body mass index (BMI) that are related to GHQ-12.

Results

When the cut-off point of GHQ-12 was 2/3, 97 workers who showed high GHQ-12 score were classified as one group having poor psychological well-being. A statistically significantly lower SOC score, higher stress score, lower frequency of exercise, higher smoking score and higher BMI, but not longer working hours or higher shift work score in the workers with higher GHQ-12 scores were observed than in the workers with normal GHQ-12 scores. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that the low SCO score, low frequency of exercise, high smoking frequency and high BMI significantly contributed to the high GHQ-12 score.

Conclusions

A low SOC score in elderly workers is assumed to be directly related to poor psychological well-being, or via the development of lifestyle problems such as lack of exercise, obesity, and smoking in elderly workers. This assumption must be confirmed by conducting future intervention studies on lifestyle.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Community Medicine, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan

    Ichiyo Matsuzaki & Shinichiro Sasahara

  2. Department of Environmental Medicine, Kochi University School of Medicine, Nankoku, Japan

    Takiko Sagara, Yoshiko Ohshita & Hiroyuki Nakamura

  3. Department of Environmental and Preventive Medicine, Graduate School of Medical Science, Kanazawa University, Japan

    Takiko Sagara & Hiroyuki Nakamura

  4. Department of Environmental Health, Toyama Institute of Health, Toyama, Japan

    Hirofumi Nagase

  5. Department of Public Health, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry & Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan

    Keiki Ogino

  6. Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medical and Pharmacential Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

    Akira Eboshida

Authors
  1. Ichiyo Matsuzaki
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  2. Takiko Sagara
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  3. Yoshiko Ohshita
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  4. Hirofumi Nagase
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  5. Keiki Ogino
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  6. Akira Eboshida
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  7. Shinichiro Sasahara
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  8. Hiroyuki Nakamura
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hiroyuki Nakamura.

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Matsuzaki, I., Sagara, T., Ohshita, Y. et al. Psychological factors including sense of coherence and some lifestyles are related to general health questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12) in elderly workers in Japan. Environ Health Prev Med 12, 71–77 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02898152

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02898152

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