Psychological and physical well-being in working women

Abstract

Background: Many studies have established the adverse effects of job strain on the health status of women. In this study, we will try to compare the health status in working and nonworking women using standard Short Form (SF)-36 questionnaire. The SF-36 is a widely used questionnaire for measuring physical and mental health status. These are multidimensional measures of self-reported health status. At the end of this scientific study, working women will have some understanding about their physical and psychological well-being. Objective: To study the health status in working women and nonworking women using SF-36 questionnaire. Materials and Methods: SF-36 (1992 Medical Outcomes Trust) questionnaire was administered to collect data. The following 8 scales were measured and expressed as scores ranging from 0 to 100: physical functioning, role limitations because of physical health problems, role limitations because of emotional health problems, energy and fatigue, emotional well-being, social functioning, freedom from bodily pain, and general health. Result: Working women showed less scores of emotional health when compared with nonworking women (p = 0.16), which was statistically not significant. Overall, the general health scale was considerably less in working women when compared with nonworking women (p = 0.54). Conclusion: Working women revealed significantly less scores of mental health when compared with nonworking women.