Health-related Quality of Life Among Adult Migrant Garment Workers in Dhaka City

Abstract

The objective of this cross-sectional study was to assess the health-related quality of life among adult migrant garment workers (age 18-59 years) in Dhaka city. The study was conducted with 400 workers for quantitative research, and two health care service providers for qualitative research. Data were collected during February to March 2009. Data were collected by face-to-face interviews using a constructed pre-tested questionnaire adapted from WHOQOL-BREF. Data were analyzed by applying descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, range and median) and inferential statistics (unpaired t–test and one–way ANOVA) to examine the relationship between health-related quality of life and socio-demographic characteristics, living and working conditions, and accessibility to health care services. Statistical significance was set as p<0.05. The results revealed that 94.00% of workers reported low level of health-related quality of life. The rest were moderate and high, 3.25% and 2.75% respectively. For socio-demographic characteristics, workers' marital status, having family members, income, history of sickness and getting treatment when sick were discovered to have association with health-related quality of life. For living and working conditions, workers' living place, work permit, length of current job and satisfaction on work conditions were significantly associated with health-related quality of life. For accessibility to health care services, perception on difficulty to go to the health facility, crowdedness of the health facility and having health insurance card were found to be associated with health-related quality of life. Further longitudinal researches and policies are recommended to improve access to health care services and higher health-related quality of life for migrant garment workers in Dhaka city. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bmj.v40i3.18651 Bangladesh Medical Journal 2011 Vol.40(3):14-17

Mental health status and quality of life among Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand

“…Living with family and relatives (AOR=3.63; 95%CI: 2.42-5.45; p<0.001) means that migrant workers have greater levels of responsibility in their daily life. In a Bangladeshi study, living with at least one family member was highly associated with low QOL (p=0.01) 13 . In the context of Cambodia, migrant workers often live in a small cottage where they work together with many family members, relatives or friends.…”

“…A study in Dhaka city, Bangladesh showed that 94% of adult migrant workers in garment manufacture had low QOL, with only 3.25% and 2.75% having moderate and high QOL respectively. This may be due to the study in Bangladesh recruiting more female than male workers; within Indianite cultures, the female gender is devalued and females are perceived as the inferior gender, both physically and psychologically, resulting in very low QOL compared to males 13 . The above results demonstrate the inconsistency of QOL findings across the literature.…”

“…Living together with strangers is not good for psychological health, and often migrant workers from Cambodia end up cohabiting with many colleagues from different places. However, renting a house may cause a low QOL depending on the study context 13 . Migrant workers in China showed that residential satisfaction was at a moderate level 28 .…”

“…It is a multidimensional construct, involving physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environmental domains, as defined by the World Health Organization 9 . Studies on the psychological impact of the working and living environments report low-to-medium QOL levels within migrant workers working in various occupations in Thailand [10][11][12] , and adult garment manufacture in Bangladesh 13 . This has been associated with health difficulties of migrant workers in France 14 , low-to-medium QOL in rural-to-urban female migrant factory workers in China 15 , and with an impact on social relationships among Burmese domestic female workers in Singapore 16 .…”

Factors Associated With Health-Related Quality of Life Among Female Secondary Schools Teachers

“…1 Across occupations, workers have different levels of HRQoL. [2][3][4][5] A study in China found that the HRQoL of farmers was higher than industrial workers. 3 According to Islam et al, 4 94% of migrant workers in Dhaka city reported a low level of HRQoL.…”