Correlation between social support and mental health status among patients with occupational diseases

Objective To observe the mental health status of patients with occupational diseases,to explore the relation related to the social support and furthermore improve their mental health level. Methods The social support and mental health status and related influencing factors were studied by SSRS Scale and SCL-90 Scale among 135 hospitalized patients with occupational diseases. Results The average total score of SCL-90 was (178.56 ±66.96)among these patients,while the minimum score of the 9 psychosis factors was(1.72 ±0.73)and the maximum was(2.25 ±1.01). These scores were significantly higher than the reported national reference values(P<0.01).The average total score of social support and the average scores of objective support,subjective support and using-support degrees were remarkably lower than the reported national reference values(P<0.01).The variations of one or more scores of objective support,subjective support,using-support degrees,and the total scores of social support were observed among different subgroups,such as gender(male patients vs female patients,P<0.05 or 0.01);medical payment mode(free medical care vs private medical care, P<0.05);education degree(highly-educated vs lowly-educated,P<0.05 or 0.01);marital status (married vs unmarried,divorced and widowed, P<0.05); state of illness (the severe vs the moderate and the mild,P<0.01)and family-income (low vs high,P<0.05 or 0.01). The total scores of social support and the scores of objective support were correlative negatively to the following factors including somatization,obsession,sensitivity of interpersonal relationship,anxiety,fear,and crankiness(P<0.05 or 0.01). Conclusion The patients with occupational diseases got less social supports and had poor mental health condition. The social support was correlated strongly to the patients' mental health. We should give more attention to the mental health condition of these patients.