Mental health survey of truck drivers.

OBJECTIVES: The health management of truck drivers has long been considered extremely important from the perspective of prevention of diseases and traffic accidents. Today, truck drivers may have various underlying health problems, including psychological burden caused by deregulation with the enforcement of the Trucking Business Act, rising fuel costs, and even economic stagnation. In this study, we investigated the mental health of individuals working in transportation and logistics sectors, which ensures the secure supply and sound development of safe and high-quality transportation services. METHODS: To ascertain the mental health status in this population, we used the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ30), an assessment of mental health and currently the general health questionnaire most widely used by the department of psychosomatic medicine and other clinical departments. RESULTS: Although the mean GHQ30 score of all the subjects in this study was below the cutoff point of 6-7, which separates individuals with mental health problems from those who without 30% of the subjects were classified as having mental health problems, revealing the need for routine screening of the mental health status and severity of symptoms of truck drivers. CONCLUSIONS: There is growing recognition of the importance of establishing mental healthcare services in the workplace because of the sharply increasing number of applications for workers' compensation due to suicides from overwork. In this study, 16.7% of truck drivers expressed suicidal thoughts, indicating that it is necessary to conduct follow-up surveys of the mental conditions of truck drivers in order to put in place appropriate mental health measures.

Risk factors for heatstroke among Japanese forestry workers.

We examined the risk factors for heatstroke among forestry workers in Japan during the summer. We distributed a questionnaire to 124 forestry workers to determine heatstroke symptoms, degree of sweating and hydration, as well as perceived hotness and amount of sunlight at work sites. Forty of the workers (32.3%) reported experiencing heatstroke symptoms. Thirteen and 21 of them reported such symptoms during July and August, respectively. Eleven workers experienced heatstroke at around 14:00; 5 and 4 developed symptoms at around 11:00 and 10:00, respectively. Groups with and without heatstroke symptoms significantly differed in terms of perceived hotness (p<0.05), sunlight (p<0.05), degree of sweating (p<0.01) and frequency of hydration (p<0.05) while working. Heatstroke symptoms developed in 60.6% of workers aged up to 50 yr, but in only 22.0% of those over the age of 51 (p<0.01). Multiple regression analysis selected the following key variables associated with the development of heatstroke symptoms (R(2)=0.236 and p=0.006): frequency of urination, hotness, BMI and years of forestry work (standard coefficients: +0.229, +0.194, +0.280 and -0.162, respectively). The results of the present study showed that one third of forestry workers developed some symptoms of early heatstroke during summer forestry work. Furthermore, the results indicate that a short duration of forestry service was one of the risk factors contributing to the onset of heatstroke, in addition to heat stress, loss of body water and electrolytes, and obesity.

Effect of shift work on mental state of factory workers.

This paper examines the effects of shift work on the mental state of factory workers. As an indicator of the workers' mental condition, the authors used a scoring system (referred to below as the 'depression tendency score') based on the SRQ-D investigative report. The depression tendency score of the men was higher among the shift worker group than among the regular day worker group (p < 0.01). The depression tendency score of the male back-to-back shift workers was higher than that of the male regular day workers among skilled workers (p < 0.05). Among the women, no notable difference in depression tendency score was observed between the regular day worker group and the shift worker group. However, the depression tendency score of the female two-shift workers was higher than that of the female regular day workers among skilled workers (p < 0.05). We conclude that the mental health of men is easily affected by back-to-back shift work and that of women is affected by two-shift work because of the difference in modern societal/home role between man and woman.

Changes in health habits of female shift workers.

This paper examines the effects of shift work on the lifestyles of female factory workers. As an indicator of healthy lifestyle habits, we used a scoring system (referred to below as the 'health score') based on Lester Breslow's health habits. The 'health score' of the women was higher than that of the men, but the shift workers' score was lower than that of the non-shift workers (p<0.01). In addition, the score of workers who had changed from non-shift work to double-shift work was remarkably low (p<0.01). These results suggest that, while the female shift workers manage to maintain relatively healthy lifestyles in comparison with the males, they have more difficulty maintaining these habits than do female workers who do not perform shift work. It can be concluded that, in addition to heightening women's consciousness of their own health, surrounding entities such as the work environment, the home, and the community in general need to pay due care to Japan's female shift workers.