Association between working time quality and self-perceived health: analysis of the 3rd Korean working conditions survey (2011)

Abstract

BackgroundSelf-perceived health, a subjective assessment of one’s health condition, is an important health indicator at the level of quality of life. In this study, working time quality refer to job factors with qualitative aspects of working time. This study was conducted to investigate the association between working time quality and self-perceived health in paid workers in Korea.MethodsIn this study, 35,902 paid workers were analyzed based on the 3rd Korean working conditions survey. For independent variables, working time quality (working at night, working in the evenings, working on Sundays, working on Saturdays, and working more than 10 h a day) were set as major job-related variables. Other occupational characteristics were divided into 6 groups and general characteristics were divided into 6 groups, and univariate analysis was conducted with self-perceived health, a dependent variable. Variables that had significance in the univariate analysis were used for multivariate logistic regression analysis.ResultsIn the univariate analysis using Chi-square test, variables showing significance in self-perceived health were age, income, education, occupation, employment type, work hours per week, and shift work. Working time quality showed a significant association with self-perceived health. After adjusting for these variables using logistic regression analysis, working at night, working in the evening, working on Sundays, and working more than 10 h a day showed significant association with self-perceived health.ConclusionsThis study showed a statistically significant association between working time quality of employees with self-perceived health.

Salaried Workers’ Self-Perceived Health and Psychosocial Risk in Guayaquil, Ecuador

“…With regard to the tenure of workers (1 year or more), the findings are consistent with other studies [1,29]. Length of service in the company, understood as the time of exposure to psychosocial risk factors, may be associated with work-related stress and, therefore, the manifestation of different physical, mental and psychosomatic symptoms in workers [11,12,13,14].…”

“…The greater the demands or requirements of work activities (emotional, cognitive and quantitative) and the lesser the possibility of control, the greater the likelihood of illness as a result of psychological stress [11,12,13]. Moreover, there is a positive association between long working hours and the risk of suffering from cardiovascular diseases [14] as well as conflicts between employment and family [15]. Finally, job insecurity and employment characteristics have been studied as determinants of health inequalities.…”

Impact of Self-Rated Health on Progression to a Metabolically Unhealthy Phenotype in Metabolically Healthy Obese and Non-Obese Individuals

“…Second, waist circumference measurements, an important indicator of visceral adiposity, were available only in a fraction of study participants; thus, we were unable to examine the role of fat distribution on the association between SRH and metabolic abnormalities. Third, information on specific types of working conditions was not available in our study; working at night, working on Sundays, and working more than 10 hours per day are also related with poor SRH [63]. This might have resulted in some degree of residual confounding.…”

Association of discrimination and presenteeism with cardiovascular disease: the Fourth Korean Working Conditions Survey

“…Furthermore, the existing cardiovascular disease or underlying risk factors of cardiovascular diseases, such as hypertension and obesity, were not ascertained in the 4th KWCS, and could not be controlled in this study. Various studies have evaluated these factors and their health effects in working conditions surveys [19,22,25,27,36-38]. Further studies should identify cardiovascular disease by direct examination or review of medical records.…”