Health-related quality of life of migrant workers: a systematic literature review

Abstract

Background Currently, the number of migrant workers residing in Korea is continuously increasing, which is exacerbating the workforce shortage in its society. Migrant workers experience health problems or stress due to rapid environmental changes, consequently impairing their quality of life (QoL). Accordingly, this literature review aimed to prepare basic data by identifying factors related to the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of migrant workers in Korea. Method In total, the literature search used seven databases to find all documents corresponding to related subject words until June 7, 2022, including PubMed, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Embase, Regional Information Sharing Systems, Korean Medical database, Science ON, and DataBase Periodical Information Academic. Furthermore, this study used the Cochrane Library and Google Scholar to manually search, to include comprehensive literature. Moreover, both English and Korean were used to search for the main terms. Results In total, nine articles were selected. The World Health Organization Quality of Life Brief Version tool was used in six studies to measure HRQoL. Factors affecting the HRQoL of domestic migrant workers included general characteristics such as monthly income and residence period, physical and psychological health-related characteristics such as health promotion behaviour, medical service satisfaction, and depression, and social factors such as social support and cultural adaptation stress. Social support was an important variable affecting the QoL. Particularly, increased social support improved health-related QoL. In addition, higher medical service satisfaction and lower cultural adaptation stress increased HRQoL. Conclusions Social factors such as social support and cultural adaptation stress affect the HRQoL of migrant workers. Therefore, the social integration program should be expanded to ensure that migrant workers can adapt to the domestic culture at an early stage. In addition, people require active support to improve the QoL in Korea through activities such as self-help groups to help them cope with stressful situations and experience positive emotions. Moreover, it is necessary to provide information on domestic medical services as well as support for medical information for self-health management to improve the quality of medical services for migrant workers.

Family and Job Microsystems as Mediators between Social Integration and Depression among Rural-to-urban Migrant Workers in China: Does Having Sons Make a Difference?

“…Based on the theory of SEST, social integration falls under the macrosystem and has a direct or indirect in uence on an individual's mental health. Individuals with lower levels of social integration are more likely to experience a reduced sense of group belonging and meaning in life, increasing their vulnerability to depression [23]. Therefore, rural-tourban migrant workers, due to the barriers they encounter in socioeconomic integration in cities, are considered a vulnerable group at risk of developing depression.…”

Management of Cross-cultural Communication Barriers for Indonesian Migrant Workers in South Korea

“…The number of migrants in South Korea continues to rise, expected to surpass 5% of the total migrant population (Cho, Kang, & Park, 2023;Denney & Green, 2021), including Indonesians. The Indonesian Embassy in Seoul reported over 50,000 Indonesian citizens (WNI) in South Korea, with more than 37,000 being IMWs (Diass, 2023), indicating the preference among Indonesian citizens to seek employment opportunities abroad.…”

Family and job microsystems as mediators between social integration and depression among rural-to-urban migrant workers in China: does having sons make a difference?

“…Based on the theory of SEST, social integration falls under the macrosystem and has a direct or indirect influence on individual’s mental health. Individuals with lower levels of social integration are more likely to experience a reduced sense of group belonging and meaning in life, increasing their vulnerability to depression ( 27 ). Therefore, rural-to-urban migrant workers, due to the barriers they encounter in socioeconomic integration in cities, are considered a vulnerable group at risk of developing depression.…”