Association between Near Work Time and Depression among Workers in South Korea

The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between near work time and depression.

Data of 1,551 workers aged 19-49 years from the sixth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were examined. The Patient Health Questionaire-9 scores were used to screen for depression. Participants who scored a total of 10 or above, which is suggestive of the presence of depression, were classified as the depression group; the rest were classified as normal. The correlation between daily near work time and depression was analyzed using multivariate logistic analysis after adjusting for other sociodemographic and health behavior-related variables.

Multivariate logistic analysis found that workers with 3 or more hours of near work were more likely to report depression compared to the reference group who had 2 or fewer hours per day of near work (adjusted odds ratio, 2.471; 95% confidence interval, 1.062-5.747).

Longer near work time was associated with depression among South Korea's workers. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce near work time to prevent depression.