PHYSICAL, PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS AFFECTING THE SELF-RATED HEALTH BY COMPANY WORKERS IN THEIR FIFTIES

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the physical, psychological and social factors affecting the self-rated health by company workers in their fifties in order to obtain information that may be useful for their health maintenance and for in-company health education. The items surveyed were gender, age, presence/absence of a spouse, presence/absence of children, educational background, type of occupation, income, self-rated health,and four physical, four psychological and four social factors affecting the self-rated health. Surveys were conducted at 23 business locations of 19 companies located in four areas of Japan : Hokkaido, Kanto area, Kansai area, and Kyushu. The subjects were 1,418 workers (1,256 men and 162 women) who were employed in the surveyed companies. For statistical analysis, the X^2 test was used to investigate the correlation between the self-rated health and the replies to the items of the questionnaire concerning individual attributes, physical factors, psychological factors and social factors affecting the self-rated health. Moreover,using self-rated health as the dependent variable and physical, psychological and social factors as the independent variables,multiple regression analysis was performed by the step-wise forward regression to determine the factors that affect the subjective evaluation to self-rated health of workers in their fifties. The results showed that the physical factors of "regularity of exercise" and "smoking" ; psychological factors of "sufficient/insufficient sleep" "sufficient/insufficient rest" and "degree of social stress" ; and the social factors of "involvement/noninvolvement in sports teams of clubs" and "number of friends" were related to the self-rated health.