Occupational stress and mental health status among sewing workers of glove manufacturing

Objective To investigate the occupational stress and mental health status of sewing workers in a glove manufacturing enterprise, to analyze the influencing factors of their mental health status, and provide a basis for the promotion of occupational health.

Methods All 131 sewing workers in this enterprise were studied, and the other 131 workers matched with gender and age within the enterprise were selected as the control group. The Occupational Stress Questionnaire and Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire were used to survey the workers' occupational stress and mental health status. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the influencing factors of the mental health status of these sewing workers.

Results There were no significant difference of gender, age, marital status, education level and monthly average income between the two groups (P>0.05).The incidence of occupational stress, weak coping ability and mental health abnormalities among sewing workers were 20.61%, 18.32% and 32.82%, respectively, higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05), while the scores of occupational stress factors and coping ability in the observation group higher than those in the control group (P < 0.05). The job satisfaction dimension score was similar (30.50±4.92)in the observation group vs.(30.64 ±3.62)in the control group (P>0.05).The average abnormal rate of the active items in the observation group was 25.06%, higher than that in the control group (10.81%). The abnormal rates of active items, except for the item "feeling pleasant", in the observation group were higher than those in the control group (P < 0.01). The average abnormal rate of negative items in the control group was 14.50%, lower than that in the observation group (29.39%). The abnormal rates of negative items, except for the item "due to anxiety and insomnia", in the observation group were higher than those in the observation group(P < 0.05). It showed that poor coping capacity was risk factor for abnormal mental health (OR=3.576, 95%CI:1.405-9.101).

Conclusion Compared with other employees within this enterprise, the occupational stress and mental health status of sewing workers in the glove manufacturing enterprise were higher. The enterprise should set up occupational health promotion measures to prevent the sewing workers from coping with weak ability and poor job satisfaction.