Depressive Symptoms among Industrial Workers in Vietnam and Correlated Factors: A Multi-Site Survey

Abstract

Depressive disorders have been found to be a significant health issue among industrial workers, resulting from work-related factors and causing serious burdens for the workers as well as their employers. Literature on mental health problems of Vietnamese industrial workers has been limited, despite the rapid foreign investment-fueled industrialization process of the country. This study aimed to fill the gap in literature by examining the prevalence of depressive disorders and their potential associated factors among a cohort of Vietnamese industrial workers. A cross-sectional study was conducted in 3 industrial areas in Hanoi and Bac Ninh. A total of 289 workers agreed to participate in the study. Generalized linear mixed models were applied to identify associated factors with depression status of respondents. 38.6% of participants reported suffering depression. Factors found to be positively associated with the possibility of having depression and higher PHQ9 score were long working hours, suffering more health problems, and health hazards exposure at work. Meanwhile, being females, having more children, living with parents, engaging in smoking, and being local workers were found to correlate with lower likelihood of being depressed. The findings suggested the importance of regular health screening, work safety assurance, and social support outside of workplace on the mental health of the workers.

Depressive Symptoms, Suicidal Ideation, and Mental Health Service Use of Industrial Workers: Evidence from Vietnam

“…In fact, most of the workers living in this accommodation were migrants from other locals, who might have poor family support or connection [39,44]. On the other hand, living with spouses was associated with a lower likelihood of suicidal ideation, one of the depressive symptoms, confirming the important role of family support in reducing the risk of depressive symptoms as in previous studies [20,25]. However, living with children, especially two children or above, significantly increased the risk of being depressed.…”

“…In this study, approximately one-third (30.5%) of industrial workers were identified as positive depressive symptoms, which was much higher than that in the Vietnamese general population (2.8%) [35]. Our finding was comparable to a prior finding among industrial workers in Hanoi and Bac Ninh, Vietnam (38.6%-PHQ-9) [20], but approximately 1.5 times higher compared to workers in shoe-making factories in Hai Phong, Vietnam (18.8%) [25]. In addition, this prevalence was relatively higher than that of factory workers in other developing countries such as Bangladesh (20.9% in garment workers) [8] or India (0% in general factory workers but 36% had anxiety disorders and 18% had stress) [35] but equal to the result in China (31.7% in shoe-making workers) [14] and Malaysia (35.4% in automotive assembly workers) [11].…”

“…For screening depressive symptoms, the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) was used as a validated tool. Several previous studies were performed that used the Vietnamese version of this instrument to assess the depressive symptoms in different populations [20,26,27]. The PHQ-9 has 9 items about the frequency of depression-related symptoms that the respondents were bothered with in the last two weeks until the interview, which was consistent with the diagnostic standard of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-V).…”

“…To our knowledge, there is limited evidence about depression and suicidal ideation among industrial workers in Vietnam. A prior study in Hanoi and Bac Ninh indicated that 38.6% of general industrial workers suffered from depressive symptoms [20], while another study showed that 18.8% of workers in shoe-making factories in Hai Phong experienced depression [25]. However, while the former study had a small sample size, the latter focused only on workers in one industry, which might be constrained in interpreting to other industrial populations.…”

“…For example, regarding socio-economic characteristics, higher age, male, higher education level, migrants, and a higher number of health problems were found to be associated with depression in industrial workers [14,20]. Meanwhile, in terms of working conditions, factory workers working in hazardous environments, high work speed, high work-related burnout, as well as having job insecurity, psychological job demand, less decision making participation, and low occupation support had higher levels of depression compared to those without these conditions [11,14,21,22].…”