Quality of life and common psychological problems profile in a large sample of manufacturing employees in a developing country: an association analysis using latent class regression

ABSTRACT Background and objective: Quality of Life (QoL) indicates individual’s perception of the physical, psychological and social aspects of health. To the best of our knowledge, there is no study that examined the association of QoL with composite measure of common psychological problems i.e. anxiety, depression and psychological distress in manufacturing employees. This study aimed to investigate the association of QoL with common psychological problems profile in manufacturing employees. Material and methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted among 3063 employees of “E” Steel Company (ESCO). Psychological distress, anxiety and depression were assessed by self-administered 12-item general health questionnaire (GHQ-12) and hospital anxiety and depression scale (HADS). Euro-QoL five dimensions questionnaire (EQ-5D) was used to assess the QoL. Latent class analysis (LCA) and latent class regression (LCR) were used for analyzing data. Results: LCA identified two classes of participants: low QoL (20%) and high QoL (80%). LCR, after adjusting for the effects of confounding variables including demographic, life style and job-related variables, showed that the higher scores of psychological problems profile was significantly associated with increased odds of being in poor QoL class; (OR: 6.03, 95% CI: 3.76,9.69). Conclusion: In conclusion, higher scores of psychological problems profile are positively associated with poor QoL. QoL can be improved among manufacturing employees through conducting screening programs for identifying affective individuals and implementing health promoting interventions aiming to reduce psychological problems impacts and finally productivity of working force.