The Influence of Job Satisfaction on Mental Health of Factory Workers

Background: The current study aimed to investigate factory workers’ mental health, to examine the level of job satisfaction, and to identify the dimension of job satisfaction that influences mental health. Method: In October 2008, a survey was conducted with 173 factory workers to investigate their mental health with the General Mental Health Questionnaire consisting of 28 items (GHQ-28). The job satisfaction component of the survey, developed for this study, evaluated 5 domains of job satisfaction: (1) pay, (2) work security, (3) co-worker, (4) supervision, and (5) promotion opportunity. Frequency, mean, standard deviation, correlation and multiple linear regression analysis were used for the data analysis. Results: The results revealed that 33.5% of the workers had poor mental health, with anxiety and insomnia at the highest level (29.5%), followed by somatic symptoms (28.9 %), social dysfunction (23.7%), and severe depression (12.1 %). The results from correlation analysis indicated that the overall job satisfaction was negatively related to somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, social dysfunction, and total GHQ scores. Regarding the relationships between psychological symptoms and the 5 dimensions of job satisfaction, severe depression had a negative relation only with work security. On the other hand, work security had the highest negative relation with somatic symptoms, anxiety and insomnia, and social dysfunction. Moreover, the findings from multiple regression analysis indicated a significant negative correlation between independent variables of overall job satisfaction (β = -330) and work security (β = -.303) and the dependent variable of GHQ-28 scores. Thus increased overall job satisfaction and increased work security were related to better mental health. Conversely, lower overall job satisfaction and work security were related to poorer mental health.Conclusions: The findings indicate the relationship between job satisfaction and mental health. Organizations can focus on improving employee overall job satisfaction which can influence their employees positive mental health.