Health Behaviors and Health Status of Workers: A Case Study of Workplaces in Sathorn District, Bangkok Metropolitan

Abstract

The purposes of this research were to survey the health behaviors and health status of workers   in the workplaces in Sathorn District, Bangkok Metropolitan. The subjects consisted of 398 workers aged 21-60 years, working in the workplaces, registered as the limited companies and the limited partnership, in Sathorn District, during October 2010 to April 2011. The participants were selected by the convenience sampling method. Data were collected using scientific equipments including body weight scale, digital sphygmomanometer and a set of questionnaires comprising general information, health-promoting behavior questionnaire developed by the researchers, based on the Pender’s health-promoting lifestyle and related literature, being assessed in terms of content validity by three experts with the reliability of 0.86. The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-28) (Department of Mental Health, Ministry of Public Health, 2011) with the sensitivity of 76.5%, specificity of 60.2 % and the reliability of 0.91 and Diabetes Risk Score Indicator, developed by Wichai (2011), with the sensitivity of 76.5% and specificity of 60.2 % were also used as the research tools. Descriptive statistics were used in data analysis.

The results were as follows: 1) The majority of subjects: 51.8 % were females; 82.9 % were early adulthood; 75.6 % were Bachelor’s Degree graduates; (74.1 %) stayed outside Sathorn District; and 57.7 % slightly walked during their working hours. 2) Regarding the health behaviors, the majority of subjects did not smoke and drink alcohol; however, only 16.1 percent and 37.3 percent of subjects still smoked and drank alcohol. 3) Regarding the health promoting behaviors, most of the subjects had a good level of overall health promoting behaviors, related to interpersonal relations, spiritual growth, stress management, nutrition and awareness of health responsibilities, at the mean scores of 4.02, 3.88, 3.70 , 3.60 and 3.55 respectively. However, the physical activity was scored at 2.93 or in the moderate level. Additionally, 65.8 percent of the subjects could not regularly follow their exercise plan; 69.2 percent of subjects could not regularly exercise for at least 30 minutes in each time, for three times a week, and 43.7 percent of subjects could not regularly do activities requiring physical strength. 4) In accordance with the basic physical examination, most of adults in the workplaces: 34.7 % had waistline more than normal, 45.00% had normal body mass index (BMI); and 24. 9 % had BMI more than 24.99 indicating obesity. Classifying by ages, it was found that 58.8 percent of the middle-aged adults (41-60 years of ages) had BMI more than normal. 5) Analyzing the diabetes risk score, the results showed that 28.4 percent of the subjects had high or very high diabetes risk score, of which middle-aged adults were more than early adulthood (44.4 % and 25.0 % respectively). 6) In terms of blood pressure, 83 subjects (20.9 %) had high blood pressure level; and 12 out of 83 subjects had underlying hypertension disease. 7) Assessing the mental health, the results showed that the majority of the subjects did not have mental health problems.  However, there were only 49 subjects (12.3 %) who had mental health problems of which females were more than males (13.6 % and 10.9 % respectively).

The researcher suggested that the health education program should be arranged for the workers in                     the workplaces to raise their awareness and change their health behaviors to promoting better heath; for instance, exercising, health-caring, and eating healthy food.