A Comparative Study of Health-related Quality of Life among Working and Non-working Married Women in an Urban area in South Goa

Abstract

Background: It is believed that job is one of the most effective factors in improving a women’s quality of life. However, working women often suffer from physical as well as psychological health problems due to dual responsibilities they have to perform i.e. at workplace as well as maintaining their traditional roles at home. This pressure at workplace and house may have an influence health-related quality of a woman. Objectives: This study was conducted with the following objectives: To determine the health related quality of life among working and non working women. To compare the quality of life among working and non working women. To study certain factors associated with health related quality of life among them. Materials and Methods: This was a cross sectional study conducted among 50 working and 50 non working married women between 25 to 45 years of age, in an urban area in South Goa. Simple random sampling was used to select the households and data was collected through face to face interview and the health related quality of life was assessed using SF-36 questionnaire. Data was summarized using frequencies, percentages, means and standard deviations. Student’s T test was used to compare the quality of life scores between working and non-working women. Result: The working women had higher SF-36 scores in all the 8 categories. The mean score of general health domain in working women was 63.80±15.17 among working women compared to 50.20±10.50 among non working women (p<0.001). Similarly in the domain of role limitations due to physical health, working women had a significantly higher mean score (90.50±15.06) compared to non working women (58.67±23.69).This implied that working women had better quality of life in comparison to non working women. The lowest means were in energy/fatigue category. Conclusion: Findings of this study suggest working women to have better quality of life. This may be due to a sense of self esteem, security and independence of a working woman. How to cite this article:Vernekar SP, Shah HK. A Comparative Study of Health-related Quality of Life among Working and Non-working Married Women in an Urban area in South Goa. Int J Preven Curat Comm Med 2019; 5(3): 1-7.