Relationship between quality of life and work ability among judicial employees

As is known, occupational diseases hamper productivity by impairing not only the work ability, but also all the aspects related with the quality of life of employees. Maintenance of work ability is associated with the state of health needed to perform work activities, which when are properly done lead to satisfactory results for both organizations and workers.

To investigate the relationship between quality of life and work ability among judicial employees.

Cross-sectional observational study. The sample comprised 88 randomly selected judicial employees from both sexes. The study was conducted at the Court of Justice of Pernambuco, Recife, Brazil. Data collection was performed through questionnaires for sociodemographic variables, quality of life and Work Ability Index. Pearson's correlation was used for data analysis.

90.9% of participants had income equivalent to 5 or more times the minimum wage; 73.9% worked up to 6 hours per day; and 52.3% reported regular practice of physical activity. Correlation between work ability and quality of life was stronger for the participants with regular practice of physical activity (R=0.60; p<0.001) and shorter working time (R=0.61; p<0.001). On analysis per sex, work ability exhibited significant and moderate correlation with quality of life for both males (R=0.62; p<0.001) and females (R=0.40; p<0.010).

Relative to the analyzed sample of judicial employees positive correlation was found between work ability and overall quality of life, as well as with quality of life physical health, social, psychological and environment domains.