Mental Health of Workers One Year After the Kumamoto Earthquakes
- VernacularTitle:熊本地震1年後における就労者の精神的健康に関する研究 ─車中泊の特性と精神的健康に与える影響─
- Author:
Kayoko KOGA
1
;
Hiromi KIMURA
1
;
Midori NISHIO
2
;
Hiroko KUKIHARA
1
;
Satoshi IKEDA
1
Author Information
- From:Journal of the Japanese Association of Rural Medicine 2021;70(2):104-113
- CountryJapan
- Language:Japanese
- Abstract: It has been reported that 30% of deaths related to the Kumamoto Earthquakes were among those who had spent nights in the car. Spending nights in the car imposes heavy mental and physical burden, but it has been examined in only a few studies. At 1 year after the Kumamoto Earthquakes, this study examined the factors affecting the mental health of 460 disaster-affected workers at 13 companies who stayed in the car. It was found that 181 workers (72.7%) had spent nights in the car. They had significantly higher scores on the Athene Insomnia Scale, revised Impact of Event Scale (IES-R), and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) 28 compared with workers who had not stayed overnight in the car. Multiple regression analysis showed that “physical functioning”, “social functioning”, “anxiety and insomnia”, and “staying in the car” were factors affecting the IES-R score, while “vitality”, “avoidance symptoms”, “staying in the car”, and “subjective symptoms” were factors affecting the GHQ 28 score. Mental burden on workers in a natural disaster are imposed in addition to accumulated work burden. Given that mental burden may not ease over a prolonged period, there appears to be a substantial need to urgently discuss how assistance measures should be provided.
