Relationship between employees' management factor of visual display terminal (VDT) work time and 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) at one Japanese IT company's computer worksite

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: We studied 1365 male workers at a Japanese computer worksite in 2004 to determine the relationship between employees' time management factor of visual display terminal (VDT) work and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) score. METHODS: We developed questionnaires concerning age, management factor of VDT work time (total daily VDT work time, duration of continuous work), other work-related conditions (commuting time, job rank, type of job, hours of monthly overtime), lifestyle (smoking, alcohol consumption, exercise, having breakfast, sleeping hours), and the Japanese version of 28-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ). Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the odds ratios (ORs) of the high-GHQ groups (>6.0) associated with age and the time management factor of VDT work. RESULTS: Multivariate logistic regression analyses indicated lower ORs for certain groups: workers older than 50 years old had significantly a lower OR than those younger than 30 years old; workers sleeping less than 6 h showed a lower OR than those sleeping more than 6 h. In contrast, significantly higher ORs were shown for workers with continuous work durations of more than 3 h compared with those with less than 1 h, those with more than 25 h/mo overtime compared with those with less, those doing VDT work of more than 7.5 h/day compared with those doing less than 4.5 h/day, and those with more than 25 h/mo of overtime compared with those with less. CONCLUSION: Male Japanese computer workers' GHQ scores are significantly associated with time management factors of VDT work.