Stress and Stress Coping in Japanese Agricultural Workers / 日本農村医学会雑誌

ABSTRACT

We developed a questionnaire for analysing actual state of stress and determining affective stressors in agricultural workers based on their works and lives. Using that we conducted the collaborative surveys to agricultural workers in 5 different districts in Japan. The results were as follows;<BR>Among agricultural workers (662 males, 1, 084 females) 48% of males and 59% of females were being felt stress with higher prevalance rates in younger age group (under 59yr.) than in elders (over 60yr.). Affective stressors were found in various situations of agricultural works and lives, such as, factors related to work demand category by Karasek's psychological work model, and to agricultural work elements, i. e., dangerous equipments, dust generating condition, works under the sun, long work hours, irregular meal, etc, and to life-events, i. e., a debt, decrease of products, difficulty of relation to neighbors, care of the aged, personal and family member's disease and injury, etc. It was noticeable that the intensity to develop stress by those stressors was manifested stronger in female workers than in male workers. The results of the multiple regression analysis with the scores of those items indicated that the most affective factor for disturbance of quality of life (QOL) was to be the stress and for improvement of QOL was to be the social support. Those results indicated that to keep advantageous factors in the agricultural works categorised by Karasek's psycological work model, i. e., high control and low demans work, and to improve stressful work elements leading to high demand and low control work might be the most effective measure to improve the QOL of agricultural workers. To construct an appropriate network system for the social support in the rural communities using JA and other organizations might be also essential.<BR>The present study also revealed that the process of the present investigation, i. e., to develop the questionnaire and to analyse an actual state of stress and factors of stress coping in agricultural workers using that questionnaire was to be useful to propose appropriate measures for improving QOL of agricultural workers based on actual state of their work and living conditions.