(A) structural relationship of work stress, smoking, drinking and mental health

Abstract

Introduction : Workplace is one of the most influential environment in ones life. The mental health of Korean workers are threatened by the high levels of work stress that they are known to experience. Moreover, the working population of Korea tend to engage in health-risk behaviors based on the strong belief that smoking and drinking can serve as an anti-anxiety agent. So far, findings on the magnitude and direction of the relationships between work stress, health-risk behaviors and mental health have been inconsistent. Structural equation modelling, which is a latent variable model, has the ability to unmask the hidden relationships between variables by taking account of unobserved heterogeneity in participants. This study aims to identify the relationships between work stress, health-risk behaviors and mental health by using a structural equation model to achieve mental and physical well-being of the working population.

Methods : Statistical analyses were conducted on a subset of the Third Korean Working Conditions Survey (2011). Two different models have been implemented to address more accurate relationships between the study variables. Research model 1 suggested a mediation model with work stress as an independent variable, health-risk behaviors as a mediating variable and mental health as a dependent variable. Research model 2 suggested a recursive model (work stress -> mental health ->health-risk behaviors -> work stress). Confirmatory factor analysis was applied and path analyses were conducted for each of the research model. Also, in order to measure the indirect effect of work stress on mental health, mediation analysis through bootstrapping has been applied.

Results : Work stress appears to be a significant determinant of poor mental health conditions among men in both research model 1 (β=-0.59) and research model 2 (β=-0.61) at p<0.001. The relationship between work stress and health risk behaviors were found to be only significant among men in research model 1 (β=0.08). On the other hand, high intensity of health-risk behaviors is related to poor mental health in both men (β=-0.16) and women (β=-0.29) at p<0.001 and p<0.05 respectively. The pathway of the opposite direction predicting high intensity of health-risk behaviors as an outcome of poor mental health condition was also found be significant among men(β=-0.20). In research model 1, the indirect effect of health-risk behaviors in the relationship of work stress and mental health was found to be significant at p<0.05.

Conclusion : To efficiently target for the work-related stress of the Korean employees, perceptions of health-risk behaviors as means of stress relief agents must be changed. In addition, appropriate stress coping strategies based on the characteristics of employees must be developed and applied to improve both mental and physical health status of workers.