Association between workplace health promotion service utilisation and depressive symptoms among workers: a nationwide survey.

OBJECTIVES: Workplace-related factors are associated with the risk of depression. Despite implementation of workplace health promotion (WHP) programmes in China to promote the physical and mental well-being of workers, the relationship between WHP and depression has received limited attention. This study investigated the association between WHP service utilisation and depressive symptoms among workers.

STUDY DESIGN: This was a cross-sectional survey.

METHODS: A researcher-designed questionnaire was used to collect information on socio-demographic and occupational characteristics, WHP service utilisation, and mental health status. The Lasso method was used for variable selection to achieve dimension reduction, and logistic regression was used to assess the association between WHP service utilisation and depressive symptoms.

RESULTS: The analysis included 11,710 workers, of whom 17.0% had depressive symptoms. Lasso regression resulted in 6 of 18 WHP services showing significant negative associations with depressive symptoms, including occupational safety training, mental health services, health check-ups, sports activities, fitness rooms, and healthy canteens. The logistic regression results showed that, after adjusting for sociodemographic and occupational factors, utilisation of these six services was associated with a decreased likelihood of depressive symptoms. The adjusted odds ratio (aOR) was 0.84 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.73-0.96) for occupational safety training, aOR: 0.82 (95% CI: 0.68-0.99) for mental health services, aOR: 0.80 (95% CI: 0.71-0.90) for health check-ups, aOR: 0.68 (95% CI: 0.57-0.80) for sports activities, aOR: 0.59 (95% CI: 0.47-0.74) for fitness rooms and aOR: 0.72 (95% CI: 0.59-0.87) for healthy canteens.

CONCLUSIONS: Utilisation of WHP services was associated with a lower prevalence of depressive symptoms. Implementation of WHP services and the provision of a supportive workplace environment should be prioritised to benefit the mental health of workers.