Anxiety and Depression Symptoms Among Farmers: The HUNT Study, Norway

Abstract

Agriculture has undergone profound changes, and farmers face a wide variety of stressors. Our aim was to study the levels of anxiety and depression symptoms among Norwegian farmers compared with other occupational groups. Working participants in the HUNT3 Survey (The Nord-Trøndelag Health Study, 2006–2008), aged 19–66.9 years, were included in this cross-sectional study. We compared farmers (women, n = 317; men, n = 1,100) with HUNT3 participants working in other occupational groups (women, n = 13,429; men, n = 10,026), classified according to socioeconomic status. We used the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) to measure anxiety and depression symptoms. Both male and female farmers had higher levels of depression symptoms than the general working population, but the levels of anxiety symptoms did not differ. The differences in depression symptom levels between farmers and the general working population increased with age. In an age-adjusted logistic regression analysis, the odds ratio (OR) for depression caseness (HADS-D ≥8) when compared with the general working population was 1.49 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.22–1.83) in men and 1.29 (95% CI: 0.85–1.95) in women. Male farmers had a higher OR of depression caseness than any other occupational group (OR = 1.94, 95% CI: 1.52–2.49, using higher-grade professionals as reference). Female farmers had an OR similar to men (2.00, 95% CI: 1.26–3.17), but lower than other manual occupations. We found that farmers had high levels of depression symptoms and average levels of anxiety symptoms compared with other occupational groups.

Neurological and mental health outcomes among conventional and organic farmers in Indiana, USA

“…Similar effects of other pesticides were noted in studies of Costa Rican banana farmers [21] and Colorado residents living on conventional farms [22]. Various sociodemographic and occupational factors that may exist in the farm environment, including limitation in farm infrastructure, weak family structure, farm economy, bureaucracy, and other farming related uncertainty, may generate stressors for these farmers and may put them at risk of mental health issues, including depression and anxiety [23].…”

“…Even though the response rate for the scale was 83%, the 'low' value of Cronbach's alpha revealed that the measure was fairly unidimensional. Several studies indicated that the combination of occupational and environmental stressors may contribute to increased risks of mental health outcomes and psychiatric disorders, such as suicide, even though information about these risk factors remains very limited [23,[34][35][36]. One study on 605 farm workers in the UK found that migrant organic farmworkers were happier and significantly less depressed than the conventional workers as they scored higher on Short Depression Happiness Scale (SDHS).…”

Farmers' mental health: A longitudinal sibling comparison – the HUNT study, Norway

“…To our knowledge, this study is the first to use a sibling comparison design to investigate the mental health of farmers. Two large cross-sectional studies found that Norwegian farmers had high levels of symptoms of depression (5,6), and in our prospective analysis, we found that farmers had the highest odds of having symptoms of depression of all occupational groups in the study.…”

“…However, the evidence for whether the mental health of farmers differs from that of the general population is scarce and shows mixed results (1). Some studies have found that farmers had lower or similar prevalences of mental health problems compared to the general population or other rural residents (2-4), but two large population-based Norwegian studies found indications that farmers had the highest prevalence of depressive symptoms of all the occupational groups included in those studies (5,6).…”

Organic solvent exposure and depressive symptoms among licensed pesticide applicators in the Agricultural Health Study

“…Farmers are known to experience higher rates of depression and anxiety in comparison to non-farmers (Browning et al 2008; Hounsome et al 2012; Torske et al 2016a; Torske et al 2016b). Estimates of depression prevalence among farmers have ranged from 8% to 20%, compared to a national prevalence of approximately 8% (Beseler et al 2008; CDC 2012).…”