Relationship between health practices and depressive mood among industrial workers

Abstract

In order to investigate the relationship between health practices and depressive mood, a survey was made by mail questionnaire on 3, 987 industrial workers, which included items on 8 health practices and Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (Zung SDS). A total of 3,160 or 79.3% responded to the questionnaire. Multivariate analysis was employed to control the effects of possible confounders, such as demographic, job- and health-related variables. As the results, the following four health practices were found to be significantly related to low depressive score in male cases (N=2, 779) : (1) eating breakfast regularly, (2) habitual physical activity, (3) moderate alcohol consumption, and (4) obesity not less than —10%. The following three health practices were found in female cases (N=381) to be significantly related to low depression score : (1) sleeping regularly 7–8 h per night, (2) habitual physical activity, and (3) non-smoker. It is considered that these health practices might decrease depressive mood, but further analysis is needed to determine their causal relationships because of the cross-sectional design of the present study. © 1987, Japan Society for Occupational Health. All rights reserved.