Determinants of the Proactiveness of Female Migrant Workers with Psychological Distress Seeking Allied Health Services.

Abstract

Seeking utilization of allied health services (AHS) has significant implications for psychological distress self-management. However, utilization of AHS by Chinese female migrant workers (FMWs) has not received enough attention. This study, therefore, aims to explore what contributes to FMWs' proactiveness in utilizing AHS. A cross-sectional study was conducted to collect data in terms of socio-demographic characteristics, work-related characteristics and AHS accessibility. A logistic regression model was adopted to examine association of these predictors with proactiveness in seeking AHS. 992 FMWs with psychological distress were interviewed with stratified multiple-stage sampling. The results indicated that Basic Public Health Services (BPHS) is a salient predictor affecting proactiveness in seeking AHS. BPHS includes psychological counseling (Odds Ratio (OR) =2.401, 95% Confidence Interval (CI) =1.284-4.490, p =0.006), psychotherapy (OR = 2.063, 95% CI = 1.438-2.960, p =0.000) and health knowledge lectures (OR = 1.613, 95% CI = 1.115-2.333, p =0.011). Moreover, sampled participants under 25 and those who received education for more than 9years are more likely to seek AHS compared with other groups. In addition, proactiveness in seeking AHS is clearly associated with working hours per day. The probability is only 31.1% for those working more than 12h per day to seek AHS actively compared with those working below 8h (95% CI = 0.119-0.812, p =0.017). There are no differences between those with 8-12 working hours and those working less than 8h (OR = 1.100, 95% CI = 0.798-1.518, p =0.560). The present findings suggest that policies be made to improve the coverage of BPHS and to provide specified AHS to meet the increasing demand of different social groups.