Emotional Demand and Mental Health in Korean Employees

Emotional demand (ED) at work is related to mental health in the general workforce, not just emotional workers. We investigated the relationships between ED and mental health outcomes, including distress, depressive symptoms (DS), experience of depression (DE), and suicidal ideation (SI) on the entire general workforce using nationally representative data.

5787 full-time employees were analyzed using cross-sectional design with the fourth Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (K-NHANES IV). Work-related psychosocial factors and mental health status were measured through face-to-face interviews. Multi-stage and stratified survey designs were considered in the analysis, and the mental health effects of ED were analyzed using multivariable logistic analysis. The Cochran-Armitage trend test was conducted to investigate increases in the relationship between the severity of ED and mental health outcomes.

The subjects comprised 3089 men and 2698 women. ED was reported by 36.7% of men and 39.3% of women. The estimated prevalence of distress was 27.5% in men and 34.6% in women. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) of ED for distress were 2.62 (95% confidence interval (CI) = 2.10-3.28) for men and 2.57 (95% CI = 1.92-3.45) for women. DS was significantly related to ED (men: OR = 1.72, 95% CI = 1.18-2.50; women: OR = 1.91, 95% CI = 1.33-2.74). ED was also significant psychosocial risk factor for DE (men: OR = 1.88, 95% CI = 1.07-3.29; women: OR = 1.77, 95% CI = 1.15-2.75) and SI (men: OR = 1.64, 95% CI = 1.11-2.41; women: OR = 2.31, 95% CI = 1.63-3.28).

ED was a risk factor for distress, DS, DE, and SI in the general workforce. Legal and social safety networks should be constructed for workers whose emotions may be hidden at work, as well as workers in emotion-related fields.